Lindsey Davis - A dying light in Corduba

'You are believed to have been the sole mover, or to have assisted, in tampering with an official report on corruption which had been written by your predecessor Cornelius; you altered it significantly while the document was at your father's house after being taken there by Camillus Aelianus.'

'Oh!' he said.

'You have also been accused of inveigling Rufius Constans – a minor who was under your influence – into supplying a dancer to the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. The girl subsequently attacked and killed an imperial agent, a man called Valentinus, and seriously wounded Anacrites, the Chief Spy. The charge is that you incited Rufius to join you in hiring the dancer to do the killings, that you took him with you when you arranged this, and that with him you hid in the shadows and witnessed the first murder. You then got drunk, and later lied about where you had been that night. Rufius Constans confessed everything to a witness, so there will be full corroborative testimony.'

'That's a tough one,' he said.

'There is evidence that you were with Rufius Constans when he was crushed under a grinding-stone, and that you then abandoned him alone with his injuries.'

'I should not have done that,' he apologised.

'I possess physical proof that you took my carriage to visit him. I ask you to tell me whether or not you engineered the apparent accident?'

'Ah!' he responded quietly. 'Of course it was an accident.'

'The dancing girl Selia has been found strangled at your father's estate near Corduba. Do you know anything about that?'

Quadratus looked shocked. 'I do not!'

Well, I believed that.

'There are those who believe you are unsuitable to be quaestor, though you will be glad to know that in my opinion mere ineptitude is not an indictable offence.'

'Why would I want to do these things you mention?' he asked me in a wondering tone. 'Is there supposed to have been some personal advantage to me?'

'Financial motives have certainly been suggested. I'm prepared to be persuaded most of it was caused by complete irresponsibility.'

'That's a hard verdict on my character!'

'And it's a poor excuse for murder.'

'I have a good explanation for everything.'

'Of course you have. There will always be excuses – and I believe you will even convince yourself that the excuses are true.'

We were still standing at the top of the exit from the seam. Quinctius moved aside abstractedly as a chain of slaves began to climb out via the ladder, each with his head down as he carried a basket of newly hewn rocks. I signalled the quaestor to walk further off with me, if only to give the poor souls room, but he seemed rooted to the spot. They managed to get past him somehow, then another lot descended the ladder, most of them going down like sailors, with their backs to the rungs and facing out.

'Thank you for your frankness, Falco.' Quadratus ran his hand through that mop of luxuriant, smartly cut hair. He looked troubled, though perhaps only by the necessity to interrupt his self-appointed mission to inspect these mines. 'I shall consider what you have said very carefully, and Provide an explanation for everything.'

'Not good enough. These are capital charges.'

He was still standing there, a sturdy, muscular figure with a bland expression but a Pleasing, good-looking face. He had everything that makes a man popular – not merely with women, but with voters, strangers, and many of his peers. He could not understand why he failed to win over his superiors. He would never know why he did not impress me.

'Can we discuss this later?'

'Now, Quadratus!'

Apparently he did not hear me. He was smiling faintly.

He stepped towards the wooden ladder and began to descend. Ever incompetent, he had followed the method used by the more practised slaves – facing outwards instead of first turning around to give himself a proper hold.

I had done nothing to alarm or threaten him. I can say that faithfully. Besides, there were plenty of witnesses. When his heel slipped and he fell, it was just as he said of what happened to Rufius Constans – an accident, of course.

He was still alive when I reached him. He had crashed down on to a ledge, and then fallen another ladder's height. People rushed up and we made him comfortable, though it was clear from the first he would not be recovering. In fact we left him where he was and it was soon over. He never regained consciousness.

Because a man has to stick to his personal standards, I stayed with him until he died.

From Castulo to the northern coast is a long, slow haul, at least five hundred Roman miles. It depends not just on which milepost you start counting from, but where you want to end up – and whether where you do end up is the place where you wanted to be. I had shed my spare mule then used my official pass for the cursus publicus and took it in fast stages, like a dispatch-rider – one who had been charged to announce an invasion by hordes of barbarians, or an imperial death. After several days I hit the coast at Valentia. I had come pretty well half way; then it was another long trek north with the sea on my right hand, through one harbour town after another, right past the provincial capital at Tarraco at the mouth of its great waterway, until at length I was due to reach Iluro, Barcino and Emporiae.

I never got as far as Emporiae, and I'll never see it now.

At every town I had stopped to visit the main temple, where I demanded to know if there was a message. In this way I had traced Helena, Aelia and Claudia from place to place, encouraged by confirmation of their passing through ahead of me – though I noticed that the brief dated messages were all written by Aelia Annaea, not Helena herself. I tried not to worry. I was closing on them fast, so I convinced myself our journeys would coincide at Emporiae as planned. Then I could take Helena safely home.

But at Barcino, the message was more personal: Claudia Rufina was waiting for me on the temple steps.

Barcino.

The one place on that heart-breaking, back-breaking journey that sticks in my mind. All the others, and the previous long cross-country and coastal miles, were obliterated from my memory the instant that I saw the girl and realised she was weeping into her veil.

Barcino was a small walled town in the coastal strip, a pausing place on the Via Augusta. It was built in a circlet of hills near the sea, in front of a small mountain that was quarried for limestone. An aqueduct brought in water; a canal carried the sewage away. The area was rural; the hinterland was divided into regular packets of land, typical of a Roman settlement that had started life as a military veterans' colony.

Wine-growing was the local commercial success, every farm possessing its kilns for making amphorae. Laeitana: the wme I had last drunk at the dinner for the Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. Wine export thrived so well the town had an official customs post on a bridge beside one of its rivers. The harbour was notoriously terrible, yet because of its handy location on the main route to Gaul, then onwards to Italy, the port was well used. Low breakers rolled unthreateningly on the beaches beyond the inlet. I could have cheerfully taken ship to Rome from here with Helena, but the Fates had another plan.

I had ridden in through the southeastern gate, a triple entrance set in the middle of the town wall. I took the straight road to the civic centre, past unpretentious two- storeyed houses, many of which had a section devoted to wine production or handicrafts. I could hear the trundle of corn- and olive-mills, with occasional bleats from animals. I never thought that my journey would be ending here. I was now so close to Emporiae, which I had Planned to use as our staging post; it seemed ridiculous that anything should intervene so late in the journey. I believed we were going to make it.