Lindsey Davis - Time to Depart

Nonnius himself had a lean face with an aristocratically hooked nose, big ears and a scrawny neck. He could have modelled for a statue of a republican orator. In the old Roman manner he had features that would be called 'full of character': pinched lips, and all the signs of a filthy temper if his dinner was late.

He was about sixty and pretty well bald. Despite being so poorly he had managed to shave; to make it more bearable his barber had aided the process with a precociously scented balsam. His tunic was plain white, but scrupulously clean. He wore no gems. His boots looked like old favourites. I mean, they looked as if they had already kicked in the kidneys of several hundred tardy payers, and were still greased daily in case they found a chance of kicking more. Everything about him said that if we annoyed him, the man would cheerfully kick us.

Fusculus introduced me. We had fixed a story: 'Didius Falco has a roving commission, in a supervisory capacity, working alongside the public auditor.'

Nobody believed it, but that didn't matter.

'I'm sorry to learn you're off colour,' I mouthed sympathetically. 'I may need to go through some figures eventually, but I'll try to limit the agony. I don't want to tire you -'

'You being funny?' Nonnius had a voice that sounded polite, until you noticed threads of a raw accent running through it. He had been brought up on the Tiber waterfront. Any semblance of culture was as incongruous as a butcher calmly discussing Heraclitus' theory of all things being in a state of eternal flux just as he cleavered the ribs of a dead ox. I knew one like that once; big ideas, but overprone to making up the weight with fat.

'I was told you had to take it easy…'

'Raiding Balbinus' accounts seems to have given me a new lease of life!' It could just have been the desperate jest of a genuine deathbed case. I was trying to decide if the bastard was really ill. Nonnius noticed, so he let out a pathetic cough. The exotic slave child rushed to wipe his brow for him. The tot was well trained in more than flirting his fringes; apparently.

'Is the Treasury man helping you?' I asked.

'Not a lot' That sounded like most Treasury men. 'Want to see him?' Nonnius appeared perfectly equable. 'I put him in a room of his own where he can play with the balls on his abacus to his heart's content.'

'No thanks. So what's the score so far?' I tossed at him unexpectedly.

He had it pat: 'Two million, and still counting.'

I let out a low whistle. 'That's a whole bunch of radishes!' He looked satisfied, but said nothing. 'Very pleasant for you,' I prompted.

'If I can get at it. Balbinus tried to lock it in a cupboard out of reach.'

'Not the old "present to wife's brother" trick?' -

He gave me a respectful gleam. 'Haven't come across that one! No: "dowry to daughter's husband".'

I shook my head. 'Met it before. I took a jurist's advice and the news is bad: you can't touch the coinage. So long as the marriage lasts it has passed away from the family. Title to the dowry goes with the title to the girl. The husband owns both, with no legal responsibility to the father-in-law.'

'Maybe they'll divorce!' sneered the ex-rent-collector, in a tone that suggested heavy whacks might be used to end the marriage. Once a muscleman, always a thug.

'If the dowry was-big enough, love will triumph,' I warned. 'Cash in hand tends to make husbands romantic.'

'Then I'll have to explain to the girl that her husband's an empty conker shell.'

'Oh I think she must have noticed that!' Fusculus put in. He glanced at me, promising to elaborate on the gossip later.

I saw Nonnius looking between us, trying to work out how Fusculus and I were in league. None of the vigiles wore uniforms. The foot patrols were kitted out in red tunics as a livery to help them force a right of way to the fountains during a fire, but Petro's agents dressed much as he did, in dark colours with only a whip or cudgel to reveal their status, and with boots that were tough enough to serve as an extra weapon. They and I were indistinguishable. I wore my normal work clothes too: a tunic the colour of mushroom gravy, a liverish belt, and boots that knew their way around.

The room was full of working boots. There were enough soles and studs to subdue a crowd of rioting fishmongers in five minutes flat Only the slave boy, in his embroidered Persian slippers, failed to match up to the rest of us.

'What's your background?' Nonnius demanded of me, bluntly suspicious.

'I'm an informer basically. I take on specials for the Emperor.'

'That stinks!'

'Not as much as enforcing for organised crime!'

I was pleased to see he did not care for me standing up to him. His tone became peevish. 'If you've finished insulting me, I've got enough to do chasing my stake from the Balbinus case.'

'Stay busy!' I advised.

He laughed briefly. 'I gather your "roving commission" will not include helping me!'

I wanted to tackle the area that Rubella had called past history; the one that had big implications for the future. 'I need to rove in other directions.'

'What do you want with me?'

'Information.'

'Of course. You're an informer! Are you buying?' he tried brazenly.

'Not from a jury fixer!'

'So what are you looking for, Falco?' Nonnius asked, ignoring the insult this time as he tried to startle me.

I could play that game. 'Whether it's you who masterminded the Emporium heist.'

It failed to nettle him. 'I heard about that,' he said softly. So had most of Rome, so I couldn't accuse him of unnatural inside knowledge. Not yet anyway. I was starting to feel that if he had been involved, handing him over to justice would give me great pleasure. I had a distinct feeling that he knew more than he ought. But crooks enjoy making you feel that.

'Somebody could hardly wait for Balbinus to leave town,' I told him. 'They snatched the inside lane of the racecourse – and they want everyone to know who's driving to win.'

'Looks that way,' he agreed, like a convivial friend humouring me.

'Was it you?'

'I'm a sick man.'

'As I said earlier,' I smiled, 'I'm very sorry to hear that, Nonnius Albius… I've been away. I missed your famous court appearance, so let's run over a few things.'

He looked sulky. 'I said my piece and I'm finished.'

'Oh yes. I heard you're quite ar orator-'

At this point Fusculus, who had been watching with amused patience, suddenly bawled with anger and had to butt in: 'Get a grindstone and shark it up, Nonnious! You're a committed songbird now. Tell the man what he needs to know!'

'Or what?' jeered the patient, showing us the ugly glower that must have been forced on countless debtors. 'I'm dying. You can't frighten me.'

'We all die,' Fusculus replied. He was a quiet, calm philosopher. 'Some of us try to avoid being hung up in chains in the Banqueting Chamber first, while Sergius gives his whip an airing.'

Nonnius was hard to terrify. He had probably devised and carried out more excruciating tortures than we two innocents could even imagine. 'Forget it, shave-tail! That's the frightener you use for schoolboys filching oysters off barrows.' He glared at Fusculus suddenly. 'I know you!'

'I've been involved in the Balbinus case.'

'Oh yes, one of the Fourth Cohort's brave esparto-grass boys!' This was the traditional rude nickname for the foot patrols, after the mats they were issued with for smothering blazes. Used of Petro's team, who thought themselves above firefighting, it was doubly rude. (All the worse because the esparto mats were regarded as useless anyway.)

I managed to break in before things got too hot 'Tell me about how the Balbinus empire worked.'.

'A pleasure, young man!' Nonnius decided to treat me as the reasonable person in our party in order to show up Fusculus. The latter settled back again, quite content to simmer down. 'What do you want, Falco?'