Ode To A Banker (2 page)

'Thrills! Have they come to hear how good writing should be done, sir - or to heckle us?'

'If you're looking for free wine, you're in the wrong place,'Petronius warned them loudly. Intellectuals were just another cudgel-target to him. He had a bleak view of literary hangers-on. He believed they were all on the cadge - like most of the crooks he dealt with. True.

The man who doled out their pocket money must be approaching, because the group started paying attention to a flurry further up the ramp. The patron they grovelled to must be the pushy type with the Greek beard who was trying to impose himself on a paunchy, disinterested young man of twenty-something, a new arrival whom I certainly did recognise.

'Domitian Caesar!' gasped Rutilius, absolutely thrilled.

III

HELENA KICKED me as I cursed. This was not simply because I wrote sensitive poetry that I regarded as private chamber stuff, nor because of my libellous satires. True, I did not welcome a blaze of imperial notice tonight. I would have to censor my scroll.

Domitian and I had a bad relationship. I could damn him, and he knew it. This is not a safe position with holders of supreme power.

A few years before, in the chaotic period when we were repeatedly changing emperors many things had happened that later seemed beyond belief; after a brutal civil war, plots of the worst kind were rife. At twenty, Domitian had been badly supervised and he lacked judgement. That was putting it kindly - as his father and brother had chosen to do, even when he was rumoured to be plotting against them. His bad luck was that in the end, I was the agent called in to investigate. It was my bad luck too, of course.

I judged him on the facts alone. Fortunately for Titus Flavius Domitianus, second son of Vespasian, as a mere informer I did not count. But we both knew what I thought. During his machinations, he was responsible for the murder of a young girl towards whom I had once felt some tenderness. 'Responsible' is a diplomatic euphemism there.

Domitian knew that I held damning information, reinforced by well-stashed evidence. He had done his best to keep me down - so far only daring to delay my social promotion, though the threat of worse would always exist. So too, would a threat against him from me, of course. We both knew there was unfinished business between us.

This now promised to be a difficult evening. The uppity young Caesar had been demoted to running literary prizes. He seemed to judge them impartially - but it was unlikely that Domitian would be a friendly critic of my work.

Brushing off everyone else except Rutilius, the princeling swaggered by, in company with his glamorously tricked out wife, Domitia
L
epida - the great general Corbulo's daughter, a spectacular prize whom Domitian had blatantly carried off from her former husband. He ignored me. I was getting used to that tonight.

In the excitement, the gatecrashers managed to gain entry, but it now seemed best to allow in the largest audience we could commandeer. Among the final comers I suddenly saw Maia; she made a typically swift arrival, her dark curls and self-possessed air turning heads. Petronius Longus made a move to escort her to a seat, but she squeezed through the press, bypassed both Petro and me, boldly made her way to the best position in the room, and forced herself a niche alongside Ma. The imperial party should have been ensconced in state there at the apsidal end, but they remained to one side. Courtiers hoicked themselves up onto shoulder-high wall ledges. Domitian deigned to sit on a portable bench. I recognised - as Rutilius may not have done - that this was a courtesy visit only; the royal troupe had dropped in to be gracious, but were leaving themselves space to make a getaway as soon as they grew bored.

By now it was clear that our planned intimate evening had been hijacked. Rutilius and I had lost all control of events. The atmosphere of expectation grew. Physically, we had a very lopsided audience, for the prince and his party of flunkies loomed large on the left-hand side, encroaching on the free space we had wanted to preserve, and blocking the view for our private friends and family behind. Even Rutilius looked slightly annoyed. Total strangers were milling about in the body of the hall. Helena kissed me formally on the cheek; she and Petronius abandoned me to find seats somewhere.

We tried clearing our throats diffidently; nobody heard.

Then order somehow imposed itself. Rutilius was taking a last rattle through his scrolls, ready to start first. He had an armful, whereas I had only one, with my dubious opus copied out for me by my womenfolk; Helena and Maia believed bad handwriting would cause awkward pauses if they left me to my own devices with the original note-tablets. It was true that my efforts seemed to acquire a new dignity once they were written out in neat three-inch columns on regular papyrus. (Helena had invested in the papyrus as a gesture of support; Maia had wanted to economise by using the backs of old horse-medicine recipes, the only legacy her husband had left her.) I was twisting the copy, unwittingly tightening the roll on its roller to danger point, while pretending to grin encouragement at Rutilius. Then to our astonishment, the bearded man who was at the centre of the gatecrashers moved to the area in front of the terrace where we were intending to perform.

Now I got a better squint at him: grey hair bushing back from a square forehead, with coarse grey eyebrows too, although those looked as if they had been powdered with beanflour to make them match his silvered hair. He had a limp demeanour with knowing overtones - in personality a nobody, but a nobody who was used to getting in other people's way.

'Did you invite him?' I hissed at Rutilius.

'No! I thought you must have done -'

Then without preamble the fellow began speaking. He saluted the young prince with an oozily unctuous welcome. I thought the fellow must be a court flunkey, with pre-arranged orders to thank royalty for attending. Domitian looked unmoved, however, and his attendants were openly muttering among themselves as if they too wondered who the interloper was.

We gathered the man was a regular at literary events in the Auditorium. He was taking over, and it was too late for us to intervene. He assumed everyone knew him - a true mark of mediocrity. For some astounding reason, he had appointed himself the task of formally introducing us. At the intimate event we had planned, this was out of proportion and as relevant as a pile of muleshit. Besides, it was soon clear he had no idea who we were or what we intended to read.

A speech by this drag-anchor reeked of disaster from the first word. Since he knew nothing about us, he started with that fine insult, 'I admit I have not read their work', then followed up relentlessly, 'I hear some people enjoy what they have to say.' Evidently he was not hoping for much. Finally with the air of a man who was just rushing off to have a good dinner in a back room while everyone else suffered, he asked folk to welcome Dillius Braco and Rusticus Germanicus.

Rutilius took it better than I did. As a member of the Senate he expected to be muddled up and misrepresented, whereas an informer wants to be derided for his real misdeeds as if he is a scoundrel who counts. While I froze and itched to reach for a dagger, tetchiness fired up Rutilius for a racing start.

He read first. In fact, he read for hours. He treated us to extracts from a very long military epic; Domitian was supposed to enjoy that type of dreariness. The main problem was the old bummer: lack of worthwhile material. Homer had snaffled all the best mythical heroes and Virgil had then grabbed the home crowd's ancestors. Rutilius therefore invented characters of his own and his fellows fatally lacked push. He was also, as I had always suspected, a far from thrilling poet.

I remember a line that started to, 'the Hyrcanean pard with bloodied jaws!' This was dangerously close to the lion that ripped up my brother-in-law - and it was awful poetry. At the first hint that a Lo loomed, I clamped my molars tight and waited for oblivion. It was a long time coming. A competent runner could have made it from Marathon by the time my colleague drew his extracts to a close.

Domitian Caesar had been a notable in Rome for four years - long enough to learn the art of the choreographed exit. He stepped forward to congratulate Rutilius; meanwhile his whole party swirled towards us, produced complimentary smiles, then flowed out through the doors with centrifugal smoothness. The young Caesar was sucked after them like a leaf down a drain. He vanished while Rutilius was still blushing at his polite comments. We heard pattering applause from the radically thinned-out crowd. They settled down.

It was my turn, and I could sense that I had best not read for long.

By now I had decided to leave out all my love poems. Some had already been weeded out by me at home, due to the fact that my Aglaia sequence had been written before I met Helena Justina and was possibly too personal to recite while she sat and glared at me. One or two more of my sexually specific odes had already ended up being used by her as old fish-bone wrappers. (Accidentally, no doubt.) I now realised it would be considerate to ditch the lot.

That left my satires. Helena reckoned they were good stuff. I had heard her giggling with Maia as they copied them out for me.

As I started to read, friends of Rutilius brought wine to refresh him after his ordeal; they were more decent than I had realised and some of the drink wandered my way. That may have encouraged me to forget which passages I was meaning to censor. Instead, when the audience seemed restless I jumped over what I now saw to be the boring, respectable bits. Funny how one's editorial judgement sharpens in front of real people.

They were grateful for something scurrilous. They even called for an encore. By that point I had run out of options unless I went back to Aglaia and revealed myself to have once harboured philosophical feelings for a slightly trashy circus dancer whose act was all suggestive squinns. Rifling to the end of the scroll, all I could find left were a few lines that I knew my sister Maia had once penned herself. She must have cheekily written them here on my scroll to try to catch me out.

Rutilius was beaming happily; now his ordeal was finished, he had swigged even more wine than I had. This evening had been intended as a refined diversion, a soir where we would show ourselves to be well-rounded Romans: action men who cherished moments of thoughtful intellect. An ex-consul, one with high hopes, would not thank me for inflicting on his elegant associates a rude ditty by a woman. But those very associates had plied us with a brew of startling power, so I raised my winecup and as Rutilius blearily responded, I read it anyway.

'Ladies and gentlemen, we must depart, but here's just one final epigram entitled No-longer-a-maiden's Prayer':

There are those

From whom a rose

Would make me smile;

And others I treated like brothers

Every once in a while.

An occasional kiss Hardly came amiss

Or drove anyone wild - But the gods rot

The selfish sot

Who fathered this child!

I could see Maia laughing helplessly. It was the first time since I had told her she was widowed that she had showed pure, spontaneous mirth. Rutilius Gallicus owed her that.

By then the audience were so glad of something short that they roared applause. It had been a long night. People were keen to disperse to winebars or worse. Rutilius was being carried off by his old-fashioned wife and his unexpectedly decent friends. We had time to assure one another that our evening had gone well, but he did not invite me to discuss our triumph at his house. That was fine, I need not invite him home to mine either.

I was preparing myself for ridicule from my own family and associates. I pointedly ignored the writers' circle as they toddled off in their battered sandals to whatever attic rooms they infused with their sour sweat. Petronius Longus pushed through them brutally. 'Who in Hades was the tedious ding-dong you two hired for the eulogy?'

'Don't blame us.' I scowled at the smug businessman's back as he meandered off in the midst of his clients. 'If I knew who he was, I'd arrange to meet him in a nice quiet place and I'd kill him!'

As an informer, I should have known that was a stupid thing to say.

IV

'STRANGE WOMAN, your sister,' mused Petronius Longus the next day.

'Aren't they all?'

Petronius was intrigued by Maia's cheeky ditty; Helena must have told him who really wrote it. At least it distracted him from abusing my poetic efforts. Off duty now, he was heading home for a morning's nap in the apartment we sublet to him across Fountain Court Like a true friend, he had dropped in on our side; aggravating me would make his sleep sweeter.

'Does Maia Favonia still write poetry?' he asked curiously.

'Doubt it. She would say a mother of four has no time for scribbling.'

'Oh, she composed that one before she was married?'

'Maybe it explains why she hitched herself to Famia.'

Helena came out to join us from the inner room where she had been attempting to insert breakfast into our roaring one-year-old daughter. She looked tired. We men had been sitting on the porch, politely keeping out of the way. We made room for her. It was a squash. Worse when Nux, my dog, who was pregnant, shouldered in as well.

'So how is the happy poet this morning?' beamed Petro. He was about to enjoy himself after all. While he patrolled the streets half the night looking for muggers or gently interrogated arsonists with the helpful boot technique, he would have had ample time for dreaming up criticism. I stood up and said I had to meet a client. An old informing dodge, it fooled nobody.

'What client?' scoffed Helena. She knew how light my list was at present. Her brothers were supposed to be training as my juniors, but I had had to lay off Aelianus and I was thankful that Justinus was away getting married in Baetica.

'The client I am intending to advertise for from the steps of the Temple of Saturn.'

'While the real possibilities are searching for you in the Basilica Julia?' suggested Petro. He knew how it was. He knew the casual way I worked.

I felt as if I had known Petronius Longus all my life. He seemed part of the family. In fact, we had only been friends since we were eighteen - for fifteen years or so now. Brought up a few streets from each other, we had first met properly in the recruiting office when we joined the army as lads trying to leave home. We then served in the same dud legion, in Britain, in part during the Boudiccan Revolt. Jove help us.

We both escaped service using similar 'serious wound' pleas; lay low together for a joint miracle recovery; came home virtually bonded at the drinking arm. Petro then married. Well, that forced a slight breach, because I did not. Not for a long time, anyway. He also acquired an enviable job in the vigiles, which I did not even try to emulate. He had three children, as a Roman legally should; I was only now bestirring myself to follow suit and I might give up the idea if little Julia kept up her current screaming fits. Now Petro was estranged from his wife, which I would never be from mine. Still, he had probably thought the same of himself and Silvia once.

Petro had never been quite the upright character people believed him to be. It was rumoured that he knew my deceased sister Victorina in his early years, but then most people had known Victorina, an unavoidable blot on the Aventine. Men were aware of her anyway; she had made sure of that. Petronius only met the rest of my ghastly family later, after we came home from the army.

Maia, for instance. I can remember the day I introduced him to Maia. At the time I was still getting used to the fact that while I had been a legionary in Britain, my younger sister - my favourite sister, in so far as I could tolerate any of them - had not only married without consulting me, but had produced two children and become visibly pregnant again. The first daughter subsequently died young, so that would have been with Cloelia. Cloelia was now eight.

Petro had been surprised when he met Maia, for some reason; he asked why I had never mentioned her. I might have felt worried by his interest, but Maia was obviously a decent young mother and the next thing I knew, he was marrying Silvia. At least we had avoided the awkward situation where little sister falls for elder brother's handsome friend. Who is never interested, of course.

For Maia to set herself up with Famia had seemed a desperate act, even before he really took to the drink. Still, girls have to find a way to leave home too. Always vibrant and attractive, she had been dangerously self-willed. Maia was the kind of young woman who seems to offer something special - special and mature. She was intelligent and though virtuous, she always seemed to know what good fun was. The kind that even experienced men can fall for very heavily and yearn for obsessively. Marriage and motherhood had seemed a good safe option to those of us who felt responsible for Maia.

Petronius thought her a strange woman, did he? That was rich, if he really did once flirt, or worse, with Victorina. Maia and she had been exact opposites.

While I was musing, Petronius had fallen silent, despite the glorious opportunity to rib me about the Auditorium of Maecenas last night. He must be tired after his shift. He never talked about his work much, but I knew how grim it could be.

Helena had her eyes shut, letting the sun soak into her as she tried to blot out the distant, wearing tantrum from Julia. The screams soared in volume.

'What can we do?' Helena asked Petro. He had three daughters, taken away by his wife to live with her boyfriend in Ostia; his children were all past the hysterical phase. He had lived through that, then lost them.

'It will pass. If not, you'll bloody soon get hardened to it.' His face had closed. He loved his girls. It did not help that he knew losing them had been his own fault. 'Probably a tooth.' Like all parents, he regarded himself as the expert and those of us who were new to the business as incompetent idiots.

'It's earache,' I lied. There was no visible reason for Julia to be going mad. Well, no, there was a reason. She had been a well-behaved child for far too long; we had gloated and thought parenting too easy. Now this was our punishment.

Petronius shrugged and rose to leave. Apparently he had forgotten about telling me his views on my poetry. I had no intention of reminding him.

'Go and see your client,' muttered Helena to me, knowing the client was non- existent and working herself up to be furious about being left to cope alone. She heaved herself from her stool, ready to attend to our offspring before neighbours issued writs.

'No need.' I was frowning down the street. 'I think he's found me of his own accord.'

You can usually spot them.

Fountain Court, the dirty alley where we lived, was a typical minor backstreet where deadbeats festered in dank lock-up shops. The buildings were six stories high. It managed to be gloomy right down to street level, yet even on a hot day like this the dirty tenements never provided enough shade. Between the crumbling walls surged the unpleasant smells of ink-making and over-warm corpses at the funeral parlour, while light gusts of smoke from various commercial sources (some legal) vied with humid updraughts of steam from Lenia's laundry opposite.

People walked through, about their morning business. The huge rope-twister, a man I never spoke to, had lurched past looking as if he had just come home after a long night in some oily jug. Customers visited the stall where Cassius sold slightly stale bread rolls along with even older gossip. A water-carrier slopped his way into one of the buildings; a chicken in fear of the plucker set up a racket by the poultry pens; it was the school holidays so children were out and about looking for trouble. And trouble of some other sort was looking for me.

He was a fleshy, untidy lump with his belly over his belt. Thin, untrimmed dark curls fell forwards over his brow and twisted backwards over his tunic's neck in damp-looking coils as if he had forgotten to dry off properly at the baths. Stubble patchily decorated a double chin. He came wandering along the street, clearly looking for an address. He was neither frowning enough for the funeral parlour, nor sheepish enough for the half-a-copper hag who two-timed the tailor. Besides, that woman held her horizontal at-homes in the afternoon.

Petronius passed him, not offering assistance, though he eyed up the man with deliberate vigiles suspicion. The fellow was noted. To be picked up later by a hit squad, maybe. He seemed oblivious instead of terrified. Must have lived a sheltered life. That did not necessarily mean he was respectable. He had the air of a freed slave. A secretary or abacus louse.

'Dillius Braco?'

'Didius Falco.' My teeth met grittily.

'Are you sure?' he insisted. I did not answer, lest my response should be uncouth. 'I hear you held a successful recital yesterday. Aurelius Chrysippus fancies we may be able to do something for you.'

Aurelius Chrysippus? It meant nothing, but even at that stage I had a dark feeling.

'I doubt it. I'm an informer. I thought you might want me to do something for you.'

'Olympus, no!'

'One thing you had better do is tell me who you are.'

'Euschemon. I run the Golden Horse scriptorium for Chrysippus.'

That would be some outfit where sweatshop scribes copied manuscripts - either for their owner's personal use, or in multiple sets for commercial sale. I would have perked up, but I had guessed that Chrysippus might be the Greek-bearded irritation who had taken over our recital. The wrong label he gave me in his introduction was about to stick. So much for fame. Your name becomes well known - in some incorrect version. It only happens to some of us. Don't tell me you've ever bought a copy of Julius Castor's Gallician Wars.

'Am I supposed to have heard of a scriptorium at the sign of the Golden Horse?'

'Oh, it's a top business,' he told me. 'Astonished you don't know us. We have thirty scribes in full employment - Chrysippus heard your work last night, of course. He thought it might be good for a small edition.'

Somebody liked my work. Involuntarily my eyebrows raised. I invited him inside.

Helena was with Julia in the room where I interviewed clients. The child ceased her raving immediately, her interest caught by the stranger. Helena would normally have carried her into the bedroom, but since Julia was quiet she was left on her rug, absent-mindedly chewing her wooden stag while staring at Euschemon.

I introduced Helena, shamelessly mentioning her father's patrician rank in case it helped imply I was a Poet to be patronised. I noticed Euschemon glancing around in astonishment. He could see this was a typical cramped lease, with one-colour painted walls, plain boarded floors, a meagre artisan's work table and lopsided stools.

'Our home is outside the city,' I said proudly. It sounded like a lie, of course. But we would be moving if ever the bathhouse contractors managed to complete their work. 'This is just a toehold we keep in order to be near my old mother.'

I explained quickly to Helena that Euschemon had offered to promulgate my work; I saw her fine brown eyes narrowing suspiciously. 'Are you visiting Rutilius too?' I asked him.

'Oh! Should I?'

'No, no; he shuns publicity.' I might be an amateur but I knew the rules. The first concern of an author is to do down his colleagues at every opportunity. 'So - what's this about?' I wanted to extract the offer, while pretending indifference.

Euschemon backed off nervously. 'As a new author you could not expect a large copy run.' He had a merry jest all ready; he must have done this before: 'The number we sell on your first publication may depend on how many friends and relatives you have!'

'Too many - and they will all expect free copies.' He looked relieved at my dry reaction. 'So what are you offering?'

'Oh, a full deal,' he assured me. I noticed his kindly tone - leave all the details to us; we understand this business. I was with experts; that always worries me.

'What does the deal entail?' Helena pressed him. Her tone sounded innocent, a senator's daughter, curious about this glimpse into the world of men. But she always looked after my interests. There had been a time when what I was paid - or if I was paid - bore a direct relation not just to what we could put on the table, but whether we ate at all.

'Oh, the usual,' muttered Euschemon off-handedly. 'We agree a price with you, then publish. It is straightforward.'

We both looked at him in silence. I was flattered, but not enough to grow stupid.

He expanded somewhat: 'Well, we shall take your manuscripts, Falco, for an appropriate price.' Would I like it, however? 'Then we make the copies and sell them from our outlet - which is attached directly to our scriptorium.'

'In the Forum?'

He looked shifty. 'Near the end of the Clivus Publicius. Right by the Circus Maximus - a prime location,' he assured me. 'Excellent passing trade.'

I knew the Clivus Publicius. It was a lonely hole, a back alley route down to the Circus from the Aventine. 'Can you give me a realistic figure?'

'No, no. Chrysippus will negotiate the price.'

I hated Chrysippus already. 'What are the options then? What kind of edition?'

'That depends on how much value we attach to the writing. Classics, as you know, are furnished with first quality papyrus and parchment tide pages to protect the outer ends of the scrolls. Lesser work has a less elaborate finish, obviously, while a first-time author's work may even be prepared as a palimpsest ' Copied onto scrolls that have already been used once, with the old lines sponged out. 'Very carefully done, I may say,' murmured Euschemon winningly.