Lindsey Davis - Shadows in Bronze

'Aemilia Fausta,' I responded gallantly, 'on my word as a harp teacher, you play very well!'

'You always were a liar, Falco,' she said.

She married the ex-Consul; we arranged it the next day. Curtius Gordianus took the auguries and concocted the usual lies about 'good omens for a long contented partnership'. Grief and ill health made Caprenius Marcellus incoherent so it was me who interpreted his marriage vows. No one was so impolite as to ask what occurred on the wedding night; nothing, presumably. Naturally the bridegroom altered his will, leaving everything to his new young wife, and any children they might have. I helped him write his will too.

I never saw Aemilia Fausta again, though I heard of her from time to time. She lived a blameless, vigorously happy life as a widow, and died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Before then Fausta had nursed Marcellus devotedly. He managed to live long enough to know that his estates and the honour of his famous ancestors were both secure: nine months after they were married Aemilia Fausta gave birth to a boy.

I saw her son once, years later. He had survived the volcano and grown into a strapping youth. Someone pointed him out. He was in a chariot, leaning on the front rail with one elbow while he waited patiently for a hold-up in the road ahead to clear. For someone with more money than anyone deserves, he looked a decent lad. He had brown hair, a broad, calm brow and an untroubled expression which seemed vaguely familiar.

His mother had named him Lucius; after Crispus, I suppose.

There was one other event which I cannot omit. It was Bryon who broke the bad news to me. The day after the wedding, I was preparing to leave when Bryon confessed. 'Falco, I know where Pertinax may be.'

'Where? Spit it out!'

'Rome. We had Ferox and the Sweetheart entered in their first race, at the Circus Maximus-'

'Rome!' Rome: where I had sent Helena Justina to be safe.

'I had a word with the new mistress,' Bryon went on. 'She seems to know her mind! Ferox is still to be sent for the race. She also told me, the Consul is making a special bequest to you; he likes you, apparently-'

'You amaze me. What's the gift?'

'Little Sweetheart.' I never have much luck in life, but that was ridiculous. 'Her ladyship says, will you please take him with you when you go?'

Every citizen has the right to decline inconvenient legacies. I nearly declined this.

Still, I could always sell the nag for sausage meat. For all his faults of character, he was well fed and free from visible disease; there were plenty of hot-piemen selling worse things from trays along the Via Triumphalis and in front of the Basilica.

So I kept him and saved my fare home, struggling all the way up the Via Appia on this cock-eyed, knock-kneed, self-willed, pernickety beastie who now was my own.

August

Rome: the mere hum of the city convinced me Pertinax was here.

Even in August, with half its citizens absent and the air so hot that taking a breath braised your liver and lungs, my return to Rome brought the thump of real life to my veins after Campania's debilitating glare.

I soaked in its vivid atmosphere: the temples and fountains, the astonishing height of the gimcrack apartments, the arrogance of the sophisticated slaves who barged along the high-road, the drips on my head where my road dived under the gloom of an aqueduct – stale garments and fresh tempers, a sweet tang of myrrh among the sour reek of brothels, a fresh hint of oregano above the old and indelible reek of the fish market.

I throbbed with childish delight to be back in these streets I had known all my life; then I grew more subdued as I recognized the sneer of a city which had forgotten me. Rome had lived through a thousand rumours since I left, none of them concerning me. It greeted my reappearance with the indifference of a slighted dog.

My first problem was disposing of the horse.

My brother-in-law Famia was a horse doctor with the Greens. I won't call it lucky, because nothing that sodden sponge Famia ever did was good news. The last thing I wanted was being forced to beg a favour from one of my relations, but not even I could keep a racehorse in a sixth- floor apartment without arousing adverse comment from other people in the block. Famia was the least obnoxious of the husbands my five sisters had inflicted on our family, and he was married to Maia, who might have been my favourite if she had refrained from marrying him. Maia, who in other respects was as sharp as the copper nails priests bang into temple doors at the new year, never seemed to notice her own husband's disadvantages. Perhaps there were so many she lost count.

I found Famia at his faction's stables, which like all of them were in the Ninth district, the Circus Flaminius. He had high cheekbones with slits where his eyes should be, and was as broad as he was tall, as if he had been squashed from above by a bushel weight. He could tell I was after something when I let him rant for ten minutes about the poor performance of the Blues, whom he knew I supported.

After Famia had enjoyed himself slandering my favourites, I explained my little problem and he inspected my horse.

'He a Spaniard?'

I laughed. 'Famia, even I know Spaniards are the best! He's as Spanish as my left boot.'

Famia brought out an apple which Little Sweetheart guzzled eagerly. 'How does he ride?'

'Terrible. All the way from Campania he's been chaffing and chomping, even though I tried to give him a gentle time. I hate this horse, Famia; and the more I hate him, the more affectionate the clod-hoofed fool pretends to be-'

While my horse was eating his apple and belching after it, I took a good look at him. He was a dark-brownish beast, with a black mane, ears and tail. Across his nose, which was always poking in where it wasn't wanted, ran a distinctive mustard band. Some horses have their ears up spry and straight; mine constantly flickered his lugs back and forth. A kind man might have said he looked intelligent; I had more sense.

'You rode him from Campania?' Famia asked. 'That should harden his shins.'

'For what?'

'Running, for instance. Why-what will you do with him?'

'Sell him when I can. But not before Thursday. These is a beauty called Ferox running – worth a flutter, if you ask me- my fool was his stablemate. I've promised their trainer mine can go to the racecourse; they reckon he calms Ferox down.'

'Oh! that old story!' Famia responded in his dour way. ‘So yours has been declared too?'

'What a joke! I suppose he'll soothe Ferox as far as the starting gates, then be pulled out.'

‘Give him an outing,' Famia encouraged. 'What can you lose?'

I decided to do it. There was a good chance Atius Pertinax would turn up to see Ferox perform. Attending the Circus as an owner myself was one way to ensure I could gain access wherever I needed it behind the scenes.

I shouldered my luggage and set off for home. I hauled my stuff round the back of the Capitol, mentally saluting the Temple of Juno Moneta, patron of my much-needed cash. This brought me into the Aventine at the starting-gate end of the Circus Maximus; I paused, thinking briefly of my pathetic nag, and more seriously of Pertinax. By then my bags were dragging on my neck, so I stopped at my sister Galla's house for a rest and a word with Larius.