Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

…'

We all reluctantly looked at the hand again.

This one was a dark, pungent, rotted nightmare, recognisable only because we were in the mood to see what it was. It was in desperate condition, only half there. Like the first, the fingers were missing but the thumb remained, attached by a thread of leathery skin though its main joint had parted. Maybe the fingers had been gnawed off by rats. Maybe something even worse had happened to them.

The relic now lay on a dish – my old supper dish, I was annoyed to notice – which had been placed on a stool between Petronius and his interviewee, as far as possible from both of them. In the small room that was still too close. I edged further along the table, in the opposite direction. A fly buzzed in to have a look, then flew off fast in alarm. Gazing at this object changed the atmosphere for all of us.

'Where did you find it?' Petronius enquired in a low voice.

'In the Aqua Marcia.' Tough luck, Glaucus. So much for crystal-dear bathing. 'I went in through a top hatch with a surveyor to check if we needed to scrape the walls.'

'Scrape them?'

'Full-time job. They get coated with lime, legate. Thick as your leg, if we leave it. We have to keep chipping it away or the whole works would clog up.'

'So was there water in the aqueduct at the time?'

'Oh, yes. Shutting the Marcia's next to impossible. So much depends on it, and if we send inferior water because we're running a diversion, nobs start jumping up and down.'

'How did you find the hand then?'

'It just came floating along and said hello.'

Petronius stopped asking questions. He looked as if he would be happy for once if I interrupted him, but there was nothing I was burning to interject. Like him, I felt slightly ill.

'When it knocked my knee I jumped a mile, I can tell you. Do you know who it belongs to?' asked the water board slave curiously. He seemed to think we had answers to the impossible.

'Not yet.'

'I expect you'll find out.' The slave was consoling himself. He wanted to believe something proper would come out of this.

'We'll try.' Petro sounded depressed. He and I both knew it was hopeless.

'So what's this about the money then?' Cordus was looking embarrassed. No doubt if we did produce any payment, he would overcome his reserve. 'To tell you the truth, it wasn't for the reward that I come here, you know.' Petronius and I listened with an air of decent concern. 'I heard you was asking questions so I thought you ought to have it… but I wouldn't want the bosses to hear -'

Petronius surveyed the slave with his friendly look. 'I suppose,' he suggested, 'if you find anything of this nature, the rule is you have to keep it quiet to avoid upsetting public confidence?'

'That's it!' agreed Cordus excitedly.

'How many castoff bits of corpse have you found before?' I asked. Now a second person was starting to take an interest he cheered up. Maybe we liked his offering after all. It might increase what we paid him.

'Well, not me myself, legate. But you'd be surprised. All sorts of things turn up in the water, and I've heard of plenty.'

'Any handless bodies?'

'Arms and legs, legate.' It was hearsay, I reckoned. I could tell Petro agreed.

'Ever seen any of them?'

'No, but a mate of mine has.' Everyone in Rome has a mate whose life is much more interesting than his own. Funny; you never get to meet the mate.

'The hand is your own first big discovery?' I made it sound like something to be proud of.

'Yes, sir.'

I glanced openly at Petronius. He folded his arms. So did I. We pretended to be holding a silent conference. Really we were both as gloomy as sin.

'Cordus,' I ventured, 'do you know if the waters of the Aqua Appia and the Aqua Marcia originate in the same place?'

'Not me, legate. Don't ask me nothing about the aqueducts. I'm just a mutt who works in the wet, chipping off clink. I don't know nothing technical.'

I grinned at him. 'That's a pity! I was hoping you could spare us having to talk to some long-winded hydraulic surveyor.'

He looked crestfallen.

He was probably a villain but he had convinced us he meant well. We knew how hard life was for public slaves so Petro and I both dug in our pockets and arm-purses. Between us we managed to find him three quarters of a denarius, all in smalls. Cordus seemed delighted. Half an hour in our den above Fountain Court had warned him that the best he could expect from a pair of duds like us might be a kick on the backside and an empty-handed trudge downstairs. A few coppers was better than that, and he could see he had cleaned us out.

After he had gone, Petronius pulled on his outdoor boots and vanished: running off to remove his reward poster. I carefully lifted the stool with the hand on it on to the balcony, but a pigeon flew down for a nibble almost straight away. I brought it back in and used Petro's smart mess tin upside-down over the hand as a lid.

He would curse me, but by then I would be across the road peacefully closeted with Helena. The good thing about having a work partner was that I could leave him to fret all night over any new evidence. As senior executive I could forget it then stroll in tomorrow, refreshed and full of unworkable ideas, to ask in an annoying tone what solutions my minion had come up with.

Some of us are born to be managers.

The Curator of Aqueducts was an imperial freedman. He was probably a slick and cultured Greek. He probably carried out his work with dedicated efficiency. I say 'probably' because Petro and I never actually saw him. This exalted official was too busy being slick and cultured to find time for an interview with us.

Petronius and I wasted a morning at his oflice in the Forum. We watched a long procession of foremen from the gangs of public slaves march in to receive their orders for the day, then march out again without a word for us. We tackled various members of an ever-changing secretariat, who all handled us with diplomacy, and some were even polite. It became clear that members of the public were not likely to be granted an audience with the lord of the waters – not even when they wanted to suggest how he might keep the flow free of mouldering bits of dead people. The fact we had said we were informers did not help. Probably.

We were allowed to write a petition stating our concern, though a frank scribe who had glanced at it told us the Curator would not want to know. That at least was not just probable but definite.

The only way around this would be pulling rank on the Curator. I disapproved of such low tactics; well, I rarely knew anyone important enough to pull rank for me. So that was out.

Still, I did consider possibilities. Petro started getting angry and treated the whole business as if it smelt; he just wanted to go for a drink. But I always like to take the historical view: the water supply was a vital state concern, and had been for centuries. Its bureaucracy was an elaborate mycellum whose black tentacles crept right to the top. As with everything else in Rome that he could possibly stick his nose into, the Emperor Augustus had devised extra procedures – ostensibly to provide clear supervision, but mainly to keep him informed.

I knew there was a Board of Commission for the aqueducts which comprised three senators of consular rank. While carrying out his duties each was entitled to be preceded by two lictors. Each was also accompanied by an impressive train containing three slaves to carry his handkerchief, a secretary, and an architect, plus a large staff of more nebulous officials. Rations and pay for the staff were provided from public funds, and the commissioners could draw stationery and other useful supplies, a proportion of which they no doubt took home for their private use in the traditional manner.