Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

'The Senate committee, eh?' It fitted the pattern. Attractus wanted influence in every sphere of this province. Getting a place on the committee would have been easy, given his strong local interests. 'I'm surprised your family aren't involved in mineral production.'

'Oh, we are,' laughed young Quadratus. 'There's a silver mine that's run by a society at Castulo. My father shares the franchise; he's a leading member of the Society. I'm standing in for him while I'm out here. We have our own copper mine too.'

I should have known.

'I'm surprised you have the time for personal work,' I cut in coolly. I had let him run until I felt I knew him, but his time was up. 'A quaestorship is not an easy ride.'

'I'm not really worked in yet.'

'So I gather.'

His face did not alter. He had no idea what those in the know would think of him being given hunting leave before he had even started. How could he? He was a raw egg in bureaucracy. He probably thought the proconsul had done him some kind of favour. Favours are what people like him expect. Duties don't come into it.

'Of course there's a lot of responsibility,' he declared. I put on my sympathetic face and let him talk: 'I reckon I can handle it.'

'The Senate and the Emperor must believe you can, quaestor.'

'Of course there are well-established routines.'

'And permanent employees who are used to doing the work.'

'There will still be some tricky decisions to take. They'll need me for those.'

The po-faced scribe from Hadrumetum whom I had met at the proconsular palace would be able to cope with any decisions the quaestor was supposed to put his name to.

I served Quadratus more wine. My own cup still sat brimful on the balustrade. 'What's in your remit?' He shrugged vaguely. These lads are never sent to their provinces with a proper brief; I summarised the quaestor's role for him: 'Apart from deputising for the proconsul in the lawcourts, there's collection of property taxes, provincial poll tax, port taxes, inheritance tax, and the state percentage on manumission of slaves. Hispania's huge. Baetica may not be the biggest province, but it's the richest and most populous. The sums you oversee must be significant.'

'It's not real money, though.'

I disagreed. 'It's real enough to the merchants and heads of household who have to cough up!'

'Oh, it all comes out of their budget… From my point of view it's just figures. I'm not obliged to get my hands dirty counting coins.'

I refrained from saying I was surprised he could even count. 'You may never touch the dosh, but you've been entrusted with a full range of headaches: "Me collecting, disbursing, safeguarding, managing and controlling of public funds".'

Quadratus was taking the flippant line. 'I suppose the records will come to me and I'll approve them – or I'll alter them if they don't fit,' he giggled. He showed no sense of responsibility. I was struck by the horrific possibilities for embezzlement. 'Let's face it, Falco – I have a title and a seal, but in reality I'm impotent. I can't alter the way things are run. Rome is fully aware of that.'

'You mean because your stint in the post is only a year?' He looked surprised. 'No, because that's just how things are.'

This was the rotten side of government. Enormous power was placed at the disposal of an untried, overconfident young man. His only superior here was the hard- pressed governor who had a full complement of legislative and diplomatic work himself. If the salaried officials who really ran the provinces were corrupt, or if they simply lost heart, here was an outpost of the Empire which could fall apart. With a brash and completely unprepared master placed over them, who could blame them if they did lose heart?

Something like that had happened in Britain over a decade earlier. I was there. I knew. The Icenian Revolt was brought about by a combination of indifferent politicians, overbearing armed forces and ill-judged financial control. This had alienated the local populace, with results that were sheer murder. Ironically, a major catalyst for trouble had been the sudden withdrawal of loans by Seneca – the big name from Corduba.

'I see what they mean about you,' Quadratus said suddenly. I wondered who 'they' were, who had been briefing him about me. He wanted to know how good I really was at my job – and how dangerous.

I quirked up an eyebrow, enjoying his unease as he went on, 'You sit drinking your wine just as pleasantly as anyone. But somehow I don't reckon you're thinking "This is a palatable vintage, if a little sweet." You're in another world, Falco.'

The wine has its moments. Baetica suffers from too much wind from the south; it troubles the grapes.'

'Jove, you know everything! I do admire that. I really do -' He really did. 'You're a complete professional. That's something I'd like to emulate.' He might – but not if it meant he had to work on my pay, eating gritty bread and paying too much rent for a hovel in a lousy tenement.

'You just have to be thorough.' I couldn't be bothered with his sham flattery, or his ignorance of conditions in the real world.

'So what's on your mind, Falco?'

'Nothing changes,' I said. 'Lessons are constantly put before us – and are never learned.'

Quadratus was still game, though his speech was becoming slow. I had drunk much less. I had no taste for it. I had lost my taste for philosophy too.

Below in the garden dim figures rushed about, engaged in some dubious form of hide-aud-seek. It required neither skill in the chase nor subtlety in claiming the prize. I watched for a moment, feeling my age, then turned back to the quaestor. 'So what, Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus, are you intending to do as quaestor to prevent the formation of an oil cartel in Baetica?'

'Is there one?' he asked me, suddenly as wide-eyed as the second-rate virgins who were squealing among the clipped myrtles on the terraces below.

I stood up to leave. I clapped his shoulder, and handed him the jug of wine. 'Enjoy your evening.'

'What cartel?' he slurred, much too solemnly.

'The one that can't possibly exist in this respectable province where the businessmen are so ethical and the officials perform their duties to the highest standards of probity!'

I stepped back into the heated room indoors. There was wine everywhere. The illustrious Spunky and his cronies were roaring with laughter, looking shiny and much redder in the face. They had reached the happy stage of dying with mirth at their own silliness. Marius Optatus had disappeared somewhere. I didn't blame him, though since we were sharing a carriage it was somewhat inconvenient. He had probably found a bailiff and was discussing the fine details of making chestnut withy baskets. His interests were so practical.

'Grand party!' I applauded my host. He looked pleased. 'Is your sister here?'

'Locked in her bedroom pretending not to know it's going on!'

Maybe Aelia Annaea would welcome some refined masculine company. It had to be worth a try.

When I clambered over the revellers and out into the corridor, I left behind whoops of determined foolishness. I had noticed one poor soul already lying prone beside a cabinet of curios with his eyes tightly closed in misery. His capacity must be no bigger than a gnat's. By my reckoning they were all less than an hour from being sick over the balcony. There would be one or two who could not crawl that far. It boded ill for my host's father's porphyry vases and his silk-covered ivory-ended reading couch. His collected works of Greek men of letters had already been well trampled by flailing boots and his Egyptian carpet was being rolled up to make a swat in a game of 'Human Fly'.

Sticking my thumbs in my belt I moved carefully through the groups of rich children dangerously rollicking. This was not an occasion to reassure a father whose first offspring was only weeks from birth. Annaeus Maximus could have picked a better month to visit his Gades farms.