Lindsey Davis - Two For The Lions

The day after the letter went off my mother was visiting; as she poked around in her usual fearless way she saw my rough for the sketch.

"You messed that up. It looks like a mildewed chive. It should be more like giant fennel."

"How do you know, Ma?" I was surprised anyone in the backstreets of the Aventine would be familiar with silphium.

"People used the chopped stem, like garlic; it wasn't a veg on its own? And the juice was a medicine. Your generation thinks we were all dumbclucks."

"No, Ma. I just think you lived on short rations and this is a highly-prized luxury."

"Well, I know silphium. Scaro tried to grow it once."

My great-uncle Scaro, deceased whilst in pursuit of the perfect false teeth, had been a noble character; a complete liability, in fact. I had dearly loved the crazy experimentalist, but like all Ma's relations out on the Campania, his schemes were ludicrous. I had thought I knew the worst of them. Now I learned he had tried to break into the notoriously well-protected silphium trade. The merchants of Cyrenaica may have cherished their ancient monopoly, but they reckoned without my family, it seemed.

"He would have been rich, if he'd managed it."

"Rich and daft," said Ma.

"Did he obtain seed?"

"No, he pinched a cutting from somewhere."

"He was in Cyrenaica? I never knew that."

"We all thought he had a girlfriend in Ptoloma's. Not that Scaro ever admitted it."

"Dirty old rogue! But he can't have had much hope of a crop."

"Well your grandfather and his brother were always hunting myths." Ma said that as if she held Grandpa responsible for some aspects of my own character.

"Did nobody tell them silphium had never been domesticated?"

"Yes, they were told. They reckoned it was worth atty."

"So Great-Uncle Scaro sailed off like an overweight, slightly deaf Argonaut? All set on plundering the Gardens of the Hesperides? But silphium grows in the mountain sour market garden isn't a hillside in Cyrene! Was Scaro ever able to reproduce the right conditions?"

"What do you think?" answered Ma.

She changed the subject, now taking me to task for renting an office over at the Saepta Julia, too close to Pa's evil influence. Anacrites had obviously pretended that this was my idea, not his' He was a shameless liar; I tried to expose him to Ma, who just accused me of denigrating her precious Anacrites.

There was not much danger of Pa subverting my loyally. I almost never saw him, which suited me.

Working at full stretch, Anacrites and I were hardly ever in the office during the months after New Year. I was rarely at home, either. It was hard. The long hours took their toll on us, and also on Helena. When I saw her, I was too tired to say much or do much, even in bed. Sometimes I fell asleep in my dinner. Once we were making love. (Only once, believe me.)

Like any young couple attempting to get established, we kept telling ourselves the struggle would be worth it, while all the time our dread slowly grew. We felt we would never escape from the drudgery. Our relationship had come under too much strain, just at the time when we should have been enjoying it most sweetly. I became bad tempered; Helena was run down; the baby started crying all the time. Even the dog gave me her opinion; she made a bed under the table and refused to come out when I was around.

"Thanks, Nux."

She whined dolefully.

Then things really went wrong. Anacrites and I submitted our first major fees claim to the Palace; unexpectedly, it came back unpaid. There was a query against the percentage we had charged.

I took the scrolls up to the Palatine and demanded an interview with Laeta, the chief clerk who had commissioned us. He now maintained that the amount we were charging was unacceptable. I reminded him it was what he himself had agreed. He refused to acknowledge that and proposed instead to pay us a fraction of what we had expected. I stood there gazing at the bastard, all too well aware that Anacrites and I had no supporting contract document. My original bid existed, the inflated tender I had been so proud of swinging; Laeta had never confirmed in writing his agreement to the terms. I had never thought it mattered, until now.

Contractually, right was on our side. That didn't matter a damn.

To strengthen our case, I mentioned that our work had first been discussed with Vespasian's lady, Antonia Caenis, implying in the most delicate way that I was subject to her patronage. I still had faith in her. Anyway, I was certain she had taken a shine to Helena.

Claudius Laeta managed to disguise his undoubted relish and assume a suitably doleful face: "It is with regret that I have to inform you Antonia Caenis recently passed away."

Disaster.

For a moment I did wonder if he might be lying. Senior bureaucrats are adept at misinforming unwelcome suppliants. But not even Laeta, a snake if I ever met one, would compromise his professional standing with a lie that could be so easily checked and disproved. His deceit was always the unquantifiable kind. This had to be true.

I managed to keep my face expressionless. Laeta and I had a history. I was determined not to show him how I felt.

In fact he appeared slightly subdued. I had no doubt that cutting the rate was his idea, yet he seemed daunted by the personal damage to me. He had his own reasons: if he ever wanted to use me in future for off-colour official work, this knock-back would inspire me to new flights of rhetoric in telling him to disappear up his own rear end and without leaving a clue of thread to find his way out.

Like a true bureaucrat he was keeping options open. He even asked if I wanted to make a formal request for an interview with Vespasian. I said yes please. Laeta then admitted that the old man was currently keeping to himself: Titus might be prevailed upon to look into my problem; he had a sympathetic reputation, and was known to favour me. Domitian's name never even came up; Laeta knew how I felt about him. Possibly he shared my views. He was the kind of smooth senior politician who would regard the young prince's open vindictiveness as unprofessional.

I shook my head. Only Vespasian would do. However, he had just lost his female partner of forty years; I could not intrude" I knew how I would behave if I ever lost Helena Justina. I did not suppose that the grieving Emperor would feel in a mood to approve exceptional payouts to informers (whom he used, but famously despised), even if their rates had been agreed. I did not know for sure that Antonia Caenis had ever spoken to him about me; anyway now was the wrong moment to remind him of her interest.

"I can make you a payment on account," said Laeta, "pending formal clarification of your fees."

I knew what that meant. Payments on account are made to keep you happy. A sop. Payments on account are volunteered when you can be damned sure that is all that you will ever get. Turn down the offer, though, and you go home with nothing at all.

I accepted the stage-payment with the necessary grace, took my signed voucher for the release of the cash, and turned to leave.

"Oh by the way, Falco." Laeta had one final jab. "I understand you have been working with Anacrites. Will you tell him that his salary as an intelligence officer on sick-leave will have to be deducted from what we pay to your partnership?"

Dear gods.

Even then the bastard had to have one more go at flaying us. "Incidentally, Falco, we must be seen to do everything properly. I suppose I ought to ask: have you completed a Census declaration on your own account?"

Without a word, I left.

As I was storming from Laeta's office a clerk rushed after me. "You're Didius Falco? I've a message from the Bureau of Beaks'

"The what?"

"Joke name! It's where Laeta pensions off incompetents. They're a pokey section who do nothing all day; they have special responsibilities for traditional augury-sacred chickens and the like."