Lindsey Davis: Shadows in Bronze

So being an aristocrat had protected the young Senator from being tumbled into a sewer. After he had died in prison his body had been released for expensive funeral rites, even though they were conducted by his freedman, alone and in secrecy.

‘One more thing. When your master gave Barnabas his freedom, did he set him up in business – anything to do with importing grain, for instance?'

‘Not as far as I know. All those two ever talked about were horses.'

By now Barnabas was causing me considerable alarm. My message through Tullia about his legacy might draw him back here if he wanted the cash. To reinforce it even if he stayed away I sent out a runner to scrawl up a bill in the Forum promising a modest reward for news of his whereabouts. That might entice some friendly citizen to hand him over to a member of the watch.

'What reward shall I put, Falco?'

'Try three sesterces; if someone's not very thirsty, that may buy his evening drink…'

Which reminded me, I was ready for one myself.

There was no need to leave the house in search of refreshment. The man who had once lived here was called Gnaeus Atius Pertinax, and he had left behind everything for a comfortable lift: there was plenty to drink, and I had ready access.

Because Pertinax was a traitor, his property was forfeit- snapped up by our jovial new Emperor. Some poor-quality farms in Calabria (like the one where he and Barnabas grew up) had already been seized. A few items that still belonged to his aged father were grudgingly returned: some lucrative tenement leases and a pair of handsome racehorses. There were a couple of ships too, though the Emperor was still debating whether to keep those for the state. Meanwhile we had confiscated this mansion in Rome, stuffed with highly desirable contents which Pertinax had grubbed together as such playboys do: through personal legacies, sharp efforts in trade, gifts from his friends, bribes from business colleagues, and successes at the racetrack where his judgement was excellent. The mansion on the Quirinal was being turned over by three imperial agents: Momus, Anacrites and me.

It had taken us nearly a fortnight. We were doing our best to enjoy this drudgery. Every night we recovered, lying in a banqueting room still faintly perfumed with sandalwood, on huge carved ivory couches with mattresses of fine-combed wool, working our way through what was left of the late owner's fifteen-year-old Alban wine. On one of his tripod tables we controlled a silver wine warmer, with a chamber for burning charcoal, a tray for ash, and a little tap for letting off our drink when it was perfectly mulled. Slim lampstands with triple lions' feet burned fine scented oil for us as we all tried to convince ourselves we should hate to live in luxury like this.

The mansion's summer dining room had been decorated by a talented fresco artist; spectacular views across a garden showed the Fall of Troy, but even the garden turned out to be minutely painted stucco on the indoor wall, complete with realistic peacocks being stalked by a tabby cat.

'Our late host's wines,' Anacrites declared, pretending to be a bumptious connoisseur (the sort who makes a lot of noise, but doesn't really know), 'are almost as tasty as his domestic scenery!'

Anacrites called himself a secretary; he was a spy. He had a tense, compact frame and a bland face, with unusual grey eyes and eyebrows so faint they were nearly invisible.

'Drink up then!' Momus chivvied rudely.

Momus was a typical slave overseer: shorn head to deter lice, wine gut, greasy belt, grubby chin, croaky voice from the diseases of his trade, and tough as an old nail stuck in wood. He was clearing out the personnel. He had evicted all the freedmen with little cash gifts to make them grateful, and was now hatching up the slaves we had found crammed into barracks at the back of the building complex. The Senator had collected his own manicurists and hair-curlers, pastry chefs and saucemakers, bath slaves and bedroom slaves, dog-walkers and bird-tamers, a librarian, three accountants, harpists and singers, even a squadron of nippy young lads whose sole job was running out to place his racing bets. For a youngish man, with no family responsibilities, he had equipped himself splendidly.

'Making progress, Falco? Momus asked, using a gilt perfume bowl as a spittoon. I got on well with Momus; he was crooked, filthy, slapdash and devious – a pleasantly clear-cut type.

'Cataloguing a consul's son's homely chattels is an education for a simple Aventine lad!' I saw Anacrites smile. Friends of mine had warned me that he had been poking into my background until he must have known what floor of which crumbling tenement I came from, and whether the room I was born in thirty years ago faced into the courtyard or over the street. He had certainly discovered whether I was as simple as I looked.

'I ask myself;' groaned Momus, 'why anyone with all this loot needed to risk it offending the Emperor?'

'Is that what he did?' I asked, innocently. We three spent more time watching each other than looking for conspirators. Momus, who was a dedicated eavesdropper, went unconvincingly to sleep. His splaytoed feet turned up at a perfect right angle in his black boots, which were rigid, the better to kick slaves.

I was aware of Anacrites eyeing me. I let him get on with it. 'Happy day, Falco?'

'Dead men and eager women all the way!'

'I suppose,' he probed, 'the secretaries at the Palace are keeping you in the dark?'

'Seems the general idea,' I replied, none too pleased by the thought.

Anacrites helped me make up lost time with the Alban nectar. 'I'm trying to place you, Falco. What's your role?'

'Oh, I was the son of an auctioneer until my happy-go-lucky father skipped from home; so now I'm off-loading this playboy's art and antiques onto the fancy goods stalls in the Saepta Julia…' He still looked curious so I carried on joking. 'It's like kissing a woman – unless I'm sharp, this could lead to something serious!'

Anacrites was searching the dead man's private documents; I knew that. (It was a job I would have liked myself.) He was tight lipped, an insecure type. Unlike Momus, who could carelessly sell off eight Numidian litter-bearers as two poultry-carvers, a charioteer and a fan dancer from Xanthus, Anacrites was examining the study here with the fine detail of an auditor who expects another auditor to be round later checking him.

'Falco, Momus is right,' he fretted. 'Why take the risk?'

'Excitement?' I offered. 'After Nero died, plotting who to make into the next Caesar was a more thrilling game than tossing up knucklebones. Our man enjoyed a gamble. And he was due to inherit a fortune, but while he was waiting for it, one house on the Quirinal may not have seemed too special to a jumped-up junior official who wanted Rome to notice him.'

Anacrites pursed his mouth. So did I. We looked around. The expensive Pertinax mansion seemed special to us.

'So,' I prodded, 'what have you discovered from his honour's papyrus rolls?'

'A pretty dull correspondent!' complained Anacrites. 'His friends were racetrack loudboys, not literary types. But his ledgers are immaculate; his accountant was constantly kept up to scratch. He lived for his cash.'

'Found any names? Details of the plot? Proof?'

'Just biography; half a day with the Censor's records could have winkled out most of it. Arius Pertinax came from Tarentum; his natural father had rank, and friends in the south, but neither cash nor influence. At seventeen, Pertinax put that right by attracting an ancient a-consul called Caprenius Marcellus who had plenty of status and oodles of money, but no heir-'

'So,' I encouraged, 'this elderly moneybags plucked young Gnaeus fully grown from the Heel of Italy and adopted him?