Lindsey Davis - Ode to a Banker

'Marine loans, to acquire ships and to finance cargoes?'

'Yes. Normal conduct between an importer and his banker.'

'You had a couple of unfortunate voyages, I hear?'

'Two sunk. Last year.'

'You were unhappy about that?'

Pisarchus shrugged. 'Who wouldn't be? Two ships lost. Crews drowned. Cargoes and vessels gone. Customers disappointed, and no profit.'

'Sailing "out of time" by your contract terms?'

'Unfortunately.'

'So the bank called in your loans?'

'It was their right.'

'Did you quarrel?'

'No point. I didn't like it, but that is what happens.'

'So you suffered fmancially? The ships sailed in bad weather, uninsured, so when they sank not only did you lose the profits but also you now have to repay the Aurelian all the costs? Will it finish you?'

'Not quite,' Pisarchus replied gloomily.

'So it's a blow – but you will find the cash to start again?' He nodded.

'Another loan?' I asked.

'Obviously.'

'From whom this time? Will you go back to the Aurelian?'

A guarded look crossed Pisarchus' face. 'I might have done.' So losses did not necessarily ruin a commercial relationship. 'But I heard one or two rumours in the Forum today… I may try to put together another arrangement. A syndicate of family and friends. Two of my sons are in the business.'

'Shipping or banking?' queried Petro.

'Shipping!' Pisarchus clarified, slightly indignantly as if he did not regard banking as a trade. 'My sons have both done well lately, luckily for us. That's how it goes. We support one another.'

'In which case you won't need recourse to a bank ' I smiled. 'What rumours have you heard about the Golden Horse, incidentally?'

'I won't spread tittle-tattle,' Pisarchus said.

'All right. Tell me, did you have a slight altercation – over your loans, presumably – with Aurelius Chrysippus recently?'

'No,' replied the shipper. 'It is Lucrio I deal with when I need credit.'

I half-turned towards Petronius and we exchanged frankly sceptical glances. I had told him before we started that Pisarchus might be the man I had seen arguing.

'Wrong identification?' Petro suggested to me. Pisarchus frowned, wondering who had identified whom, and where.

'I don't think so!' I said firmly.

'The man sounds definite.'

'Me too. So he's definitely lying!'

I looked slowly back at Pisarchus. 'Don't mess us about, sir.' Pisarchus looked anxious, yet he did not panic. He simply sat waiting to be told what was up. Something about him appealed to me.

He was either a clever dodger or quite straight. I found myself hoping he was innocent.

'You were seen,' I said heavily, 'at the Chrysippus scriptorium.' He did not blink.

'That's right.'

'Well, why didn't you say so?'

'You asked me about credit. My visit to the scroll-shop was nothing to do with that.'

I took a long breath, scratching my head with the stylus. 'I think you had better explain – and make it good, for your own sake.'

He too stretched, as people do when the conversation takes a turn into a new subject. 'I had something to discuss – business for somebody else.'

'Not banking – so shipping?'

'No. Not shipping either.' This time I waited. Pisarchus coloured up gradually. He looked embarrassed. 'Sorry – I don't want to say.'

'I really think you should,' I told him quietly. I still felt that in his own way he was being honest. 'I know you were there, I saw you myself. I saw you leave, looking extremely put out.'

'Chrysippus was being difficult; he would not help my… friend.'

'Well, you know what happened not long after that.'

'I know nothing,' protested Pisarchus, now losing my misplaced confidence.

'Oh you do!' He had told us he did. I spelled it out angrily: 'Not long after you had your wrangle on behalf of this mysterious "friend", somebody battered Aurelius Chrysippus to death in his library. So you were one of the last people to see him – and from what the other visitors have told me, you are the last person we know for sure who had a disagreement with the dead man.'

Pisarchus lost all the colour that had swamped his face a few minutes earlier. 'I didn't know that he was dead.'

'Oh really?'

'That's the truth.'

'Well, you have been away in Praeneste!' I sneered, hardly able to believe it.

'Yes – and I deliberately made no attempt to contact Chrysippus,' Pisarchus argued hotly. 'I was annoyed with him – for several reasons!'

'Of course you were – he promised you a visiting poet, didn't he? A poet who then refused to come.'

'He blamed the poet,' Pisarchus said, still trying to play the rational type. 'I felt aggrieved, but it was hardly a mortal insult. Would I kill him over that?'

'Those I know who have been entertained by that poet, would say you were well out of it,' I conceded facetiously. I returned to my previous grim tone. 'This is serious, man! What was your other grievance, Pisarchus? What had Chrysippus refused to do for your mystery "friend"? – let's hear it!'

Pisarchus sighed. When he told me the truth, I could see why a man of his kind might be reluctant to admit this. 'It was my son,' he said, now squirming on his stool. 'My youngest. He does not want to follow his brothers to sea – and for family peace I'm not arguing. He knows his own mind, and he is supporting himself as best he can while he tries to get where he wants to be… He has had no luck; I just tried to persuade Chrysippus he ought to give the lad a helping hand -'

'Whatever is your boy after?' I demanded, intrigued.

Then at last Pisarchus forced it out: 'He wants to be a writer,' he informed us gloomily.

I had managed not to laugh. Petronius Longus, less sensitive to the feelings of creative artists, let out a high-pitched snort.

As soon as Pisarchus made the embarrassing admission, he relaxed somewhat. Though shame-faced, he apparently felt that now this was in the open he could return to dealing with us man-to-man.

'It happens,' Petronius Longus assured him with mock-gravity, making a sideswipe at me. 'Perfectly sane, normal types with whom you once thought you could safely go out for a drink, can suddenly turn aesthetic. You just have to hope they will see sense and grow out of it.'

'Ignore the enquiry chief,' I growled. Petro needed cutting down to size. I was still taking the lead in this interview. I would not reveal to Pisarchus that I myself scribbled poetry. It might put him right off. Instead, with plain-spoken questions I managed to squeeze out the truth of what had happened: on the day I first saw him he had been trying to ask Chrysippus to read some of his son's work. Less high-minded than me, Pisarchus had been quite prepared in principle to shell out the production costs, just to allow the son to see his writing formally copied and sold. But at the time (with his ships stricken and the bank loans to repay), Pisarchus had been unable to afford the huge publication fee Chrysippus had demanded.

'I could have found the cash later, after my next cargoes are sold, but the fact is, my lad won't thank me. He is determined to do this by himself. When I cooled off, I knew I had better leave it right alone.'

'More to his credit. Is he any good?' I asked.

Pisarchus only shrugged. He did not know. Literature was a mystery. This was merely a whim of his youngest son's, over which he had wanted to be magnanimous. His main concern now was to clear himself: 'I was annoyed with Chrysippus. He owed me a favour or two after all the years I had banked with the Golden Horse, and allthe interest he has had from me. But when he said no, I just gave up the idea, Falco. That's the truth.'

'You didn't leave any scrolls with Chrysippus, I suppose? Samples of your boy's work?'