Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

'I don't know the man,' Annaeus snapped. 'He's never ventured out to Baetica. But we met the son, of course. Knew my three boys.'

The reference to Aelianus sounded gruff, though that could be the man's normal manner. I said I hoped Helena's brother had not made himself a nuisance – though I wished he had, and that I was about to hear details I could use against him later. But Annaeus Maximus merely growled, 'High spirits! There's a daughter who's got herself in trouble, I heard?' News flies round!

'The noble Helena Justina,' I said calmly, 'should be described as high-minded rather than high-spirited.'

He stared at me closely. 'Are you the man involved?'

I folded my arms. I was still wearing my toga, as I had been all day. Nobody else here was bothering with such formality; provincial life has some benefits. Instead of feeling civilised, being overdressed made me hot and slightly seedy. The fact that my toga had an indelible stain on its long edge and several moth-holes did not help.

Annaeus Maximus was viewing me like a tradesman who had called with a reckoning at an inconvenient time. 'I have guests waiting. Tell me what you want.'

'You and I have met, sir.' I pretended to stare at the bats swooping into the torchlight above the laughing diners' heads. I was really watching him. Maybe he realised. He appeared to be intelligent. He ought to be. The Annaei were not country bumpkins.

'Yes?'

'In view of your reputation and your position I'll talk straight. I saw you recently in Rome, at the Palace of the Caesars, where you were a guest of a private club who call themselves the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica.

Most neither own olives nor produce oil. Few come from this province. However, it is believed that among your own group the oil industry in Hispania was the topic under discussion, and that the reason is an unhealthy one.'

'That is an atrocious suggestion!'

'It's realistic. Every province has its own cartel. That doesn't mean rigging the price of olive oil is something Rome can tolerate. You know how it would affect the Empire's economy.'

'Disastrous,' he agreed. 'It will not happen.'

'You are a prominent man, Annaeus. Your family produced both Senecas and the poet Lucan. Then Nero left you with two enforced suicides because Seneca had been too outspoken and Lucan allegedly dabbled in plots – Tell me, sir, as a result of what happened to your relatives, do you hate Rome?'

'There is more to Rome than Nero,' he said, not disputing my assessment of his family's reduced position.

'You could be in the Senate; your financial position entitles you.'

'I prefer not to move to Rome.'

'Some would say it was your civic duty.'

'My family have never shirked our duty. Corduba is our home.'

'But Rome's the place!'

'I prefer to live modestly in my own city, applying myself to business.' If Seneca, Nero's tutor, was renowned for his dry Stoicism and wit, his descendant had failed to inherit this. Maximus became merely pompous: 'The oil producers of Baetica have always done business fairly. Suggesting otherwise is scandalous.'

I laughed quietly, unmoved by the feeble threat. 'If there is a cartel, I'm here to expose the perpetrators. As a duovir – and a legitimate trader – I assume I can count on your support?'

'Obviously,' stated the host of the feast, making it plain he was now returning to the singed meats at his open-air barbecue.

'One more thing – there was a dancer at that dinner; she came from this area. Do you know her?'

'I do not.' He did look surprised at the question, though of course he would deny a connection if he knew what she had done.

'I'm glad to hear it,' I said coldly. 'She's wanted for murder now. And tell me, why did you leave Rome so abruptly?'

'Family troubles,' he shrugged.

I gave up, without obvious results, but feeling I had been touching nerves. He had remained too calm. If he was innocent I had insulted him more than he had shown. If he was truly ignorant of any conspiracy, he ought to have been excited to discover that one existed. He ought to be shocked. He ought to be outraged that maybe some of the well-clad guests at his own table tonight had betrayed the high standards he had just proclaimed for Baetican commerce. He ought to be afraid that they had offended Rome.

Without doubt, he knew a cartel was being brokered. If Annaeus did not himself belong to it, then he knew who did.

As I was leaving I saw what his family troubles must be. While their elders were only just sitting down to their banquet, the younger generation were rushing off to places unknown and habits unseemly. If the three Annaeus sons had been friends of Aelianus, he must have enjoyed a jolly time in Baetica. They were various ages, but of a similar mentality: as they set off riding out from the stables when 1 began my own slow walk to the front of the house, they galloped either side of me, coming closer than I found comfortable, while they whooped and whistled and chided each other loudly for not flattening me properly.

A young woman who might be their sister was also leaving the house as they raced off down the drive. She was a self-assured piece in her mid-twenties, wrapped in a furred stole. She was wearing more pearls and sapphires than I had ever seen layered on a single bosom – too many, in fact, to let you see what kind of bosom it was (though it looked promising). She was waiting to enter a carriage from which emerged the head of a man about the same age as her. He was indeceutly handsome. He was cheering a younger male, very drunk already, who had rushed out from the carriage to be violently ill on the mansion's immaculate steps. Corduba at festival time was the place to be.

I might have asked for a lift in the carriage, but I did not fancy being thrown up on. To her credit, as I passed her the daughter did warn me to watch where I stepped.

Unfed, unwatered, and unlustrated, I turned away and set off wearily back towards Corduba. There was no chance of returning to the Camillus estate tonight. I needed to find myself a lodging where the owner was still sober and had a bed to offer despite the festival crowds. Before that I would have to flog through the dark countryside that lay beyond the Annaeus property, back to the even darker streets of the town, passing the cemetery on the way. I am not afraid of ghosts – but I don't care for the hideous real-life characters who lurk among the tombs of a necropolis at night.

I walked steadily. I folded my toga, as well as you an fold a cumbersome ellipse, then slung it over one shoulder. I had gone beyond the reach of the torches, though I had pulled one up and stolen it. I was finding my way along the track back to town, concentrating on my thoughts about the day. I did not hear anyone following, even though I stayed alert to the possibility. But I certainly felt the sharp stone that flew out of nowhere and smacked into the back of my neck.

Instinct wanted me to slap my hand on the pain, and to bow my head. Damn instinct. I wanted to stay alive.

I spun around. I drew my sword. In Rome carrying a weapon is illegal – but here that did not apply. All Romans know the provinces are hotbeds of banditry. All Romans on holiday or foreign service go armed.

Ironically my sword, an unofficial relic of my five years in the army, was a short stabbing blade made from the finest Spanish steel.

I listened. If there were more than one assailant out there I could be in deep trouble. Was this how Anacrites and Valentinus had felt when the arrows stopped them in their tracks?

Nobody rushed me. There was only silence, however hard I listened.

Had I imagined it? No; there was blood on my neck. At my feet lay the culprit stone, large and pointed like a flint. There was no mistake. I picked it up; it also had my blood on it. I tucked it into the pouch at my belt. Well, I was enjoying myself in a foreign province; I was bound to want a souvenir.