The Alexandrian Embassy (3 page)

‘I think so.'

‘He who can get hold of any weapon you care to name and get it through the city gates?'

Magnus hid his surprise at a senator being aware of the existence of such a shady figure. ‘That's the one; what do you know of him?'

‘Just that, there's nothing he can't get hold of and smuggle into the city for the right price: Scythian composite bows, Thracian rhompheroi, Rhodian staff-slings and the correct lead shot, throwing axes from the barbarian North, Jewish sicari daggers, you name it and he can get it. Oh, and he only ever does business at his house and on his own terms. Why do you ask?'

‘I was going to … well … enlighten you, if you take my meaning?'

‘He's upset you so you were going to report his illegal enterprise
to me in the hopes that I would take it to the Urban Prefect or some such thing?'

Magnus was disappointed. ‘But you already know what everyone else knows?'

‘If by “everyone else” you mean the criminal underbelly of Rome who seem to have an insatiable demand for novel ways of despatching one another, then yes.'

Magnus thought for a few moments as Gaius hailed other senators also making their way through the Forum of Augustus. ‘But how come you know about him as well?' Magnus asked once he had Gaius' attention again.

‘Anyone who has been a praetor knows about him. He's well known to all of us who've had a responsibility for law and order in Rome.'

‘And yet nothing's been done about him?'

‘No, we leave him alone.'

Magnus could not conceal a look of astonishment. ‘You mean the authorities let him continue in business.'

‘Naturally. We never touch him, which has led him to become so complacent that he thinks that he can trade openly from his own study.'

Magnus' astonishment morphed into incredulity. ‘The authorities just let him bring weapons into the city with impunity?'

‘Of course.'

‘Why?'

‘Now, Magnus,' Gaius said with a concerned frown, ‘you sound as if you're in danger of becoming an upright and outraged citizen. It makes absolute sense to let him carry on undisturbed: if he disappeared who would take his place and how long would it take us to find out? And, actually, would it just be one person? Tatianus guards his trade very jealously so that anyone who encroaches on his business normally finds themselves the victim of their own merchandise. He polices it very nicely for us; rather like your crossroads fraternities are tolerated because you keep the crime down in your areas even though you're a bunch of criminals yourselves. It's a most peculiar paradox.'

‘Now, sir, you're not being entirely fair.'

‘Really? Well, if you say so.' Gaius looked amused as they passed into Caesar's Forum where the Urban Prefect could be petitioned in the shadow of an equestrian statue of the onetime dictator. He pointed to Lentullus at his desk perusing a scroll. ‘We could go and tell the Prefect all about Tatianus now and he would just laugh. If it wasn't for Tatianus he would have no idea of how much weaponry was in the city and who possessed it so that every so often he can send the Urban Cohorts round and have a collection.'

Magnus' mind was reeling as they came out into the Forum Romanum where Cassandros and Tigran were forced to begin using their staves to clear a passage through the morning crowds. ‘You mean that Tatianus tells the Prefect about every shipment he brings in?'

‘Of course not; how could we trust him? No, that would be a silly idea; he's completely unaware of our interest in him. Much simpler just to find out who's in his pay and then threaten nasty mishaps to their loved ones if they so much as forget one item that comes through. At the moment Tatianus seems to be using a certain Urban Cohort centurion who's part of the Capena Gate detail.'

‘Who happens to be on duty on the Ides.'

‘Ah! So that's when your shipment is coming in, is it?'

‘Now, I didn't say that I had purchased anything, sir. I just said … well. I didn't really say anything, did I?'

‘No matter, Magnus; but you can be sure that the Urban Prefect will know about anything illegal that does come through the Capena Gate tomorrow within an hour of its arrival. Then he has only to watch who comes and goes from Tatianus' house to have an idea as to where the shipment is destined.'

‘Pluto's slack sack!' Magnus realised the seriousness of his position should he take possession of his order. ‘And then depending on what it is he will act accordingly; is that how it goes?'

‘Very much like that, Magnus.'

‘So if I were to go to his house soon after a very illicit item comes in, I could expect a visit from the Urban Cohorts and have some serious explaining to do.'

‘Precisely; and even I would find it hard to assist you in that situation. Has that helped you?'

‘Thank you, sir; that is interesting. Naturally I'll keep this to myself.'

‘Magnus, the day that either of us betrays a confidence will, I'm sure, be the last day of our very mutually beneficial relationship.'

They stopped at the base of the Senate House steps and Gaius bade farewell to the majority of his clients as all around other senators did likewise. He then gave instructions to the few clients he had asked to remain behind concerning the lobbying favours he needed them to carry out for him that morning in the Forum. Once he had dismissed them he turned his attention back to Magnus. ‘Vespasian will be in contact when he returns to the city, probably tomorrow, provided Caligula doesn't decide to dispense his bizarre forms of imperial justice at every town along the Appian Way. Hopefully he can persuade the Emperor to see the Alexandrian embassy soon and then we can hustle them onto a ship in Ostia and be done with them. Keep Philo out of trouble until then.'

Magnus grimaced at the thought of at least a couple of days with Philo. ‘I'll do my best, sir. Where will I find them?'

‘Ah, didn't I tell you that? Well, the delegates are all staying at a villa in the Gardens of Lemia just outside the Esquiline Gate.'

‘And Philo?'

Gaius nodded towards the base of the Capitoline Hill. ‘He's in there.'

‘What, in the Tullianum?'

‘Yes, although he's not in the cell, he's with the gaolers. The Urban Prefect had no option but to imprison him until he could find someone who would be able to restrain him from spitting at every statue of our gods he passes. As you've met him, and his family is, to a great extent, in yours and Vespasian's debt, that someone appears to be you.'

‘It's an outrage!' Philo was quite clear on this point; it was the fourth time he had made it to Magnus, growing more vehement on each occasion. ‘Me, the leader of the embassy from the Jews
of Alexandria to the Emperor of Rome, locked up like a common criminal as if I were from the lowest order; of no more account than you, Magnus.' Philo's long grey beard stuck out at a strange angle from his chin, wobbling up and down as he sucked in his lower lip, working it furiously in his disgust. His heavy brows creased and uncreased in time to the blinking of his eyes, one of which was surrounded by a purpling bruise. ‘Does the Urban Prefect not know who I am? Is he unaware of the dignity of my rank? Doesn't he know the extent of my literary achievements? Is he not cognisant of the fact that my brother, Alexander, is the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews? The Alabarch, I tell you; not some vague title such as head of the Alexandrian Jews, or leader, or foremost Jewish citizen, but Alabarch.
The
Alabarch! And I, the brother of
the
Alabarch and leader of the embassy, was forced to share the company of gaolers so uncouth that I doubt that even you would find them suitable company, Magnus. Do you see just how I have been insulted when all I was trying to do was to give alms to the Jewish beggars who live amongst the tombs on the Appian Way? It's an outrage.' He adjusted his white turbanesque headdress to further emphasise the point.

Magnus tutted in sympathy. ‘To be treated as if you were me; I can't imagine anything worse for you. But I'm sure that it was all nothing more than a misunderstanding based on you just clearing your throat at the wrong time, whilst you were passing a statue of Mars. I'm positive that any phlegm you deposited on the god's foot was due to misaiming, and the outraged citizens who attacked and beat you were overreacting to what was no more than a rogue globule of mucus.'

Philo pulled his black and white patterned mantle tighter around his shoulders. ‘Yes, and to be set upon by common people and beaten by their unwashed hands was a shame that was almost too much to bear; not one person of the equestrian rank amongst them, let alone a senator. None of my attackers had the quality to lay a finger on me and yet here I am, cut and bruised by the lower orders.'

‘Yeah, well, I'm afraid that there's never been much thought for relative status when it comes to people taking exception to
the actions of others, even misinterpreted actions. On the other hand …' Magnus tried to think of something with which to change the subject as they headed, with Tigran and Cassandros, towards the Esquiline Gate and the gardens just beyond, but nothing came to mind and instead he had to endure the whole diatribe again from the beginning, spiced with added outrage and pepped-up indignation. He prayed to the gods of his crossroads that the messenger that Senator Pollo had promised to send to his brethren at the tavern had completed his errand and that there would be four other brothers awaiting them at the gardens and he could delegate the unpleasant duty to Tigran and them.

‘Don't allow them to leave the garden complex, Tigran,' Magnus ordered as Philo was reunited with the other members of his embassy, each one a greybeard and each one looking very much like the next, dressed as they all were in white, ankle-length robes, black and white mantles and wound cotton headdresses. He took the list of Jewish requirements that Gaius had supplied him with and handed it to Tigran. ‘And this is a list of what they won't eat and when they won't do stuff – it's quite long. You can read, can't you?'

Tigran smiled as he looked at the scroll. ‘Yes, Magnus, Servius taught me. He's a good teacher,' he added pointedly. ‘No shellfish! Why ever not?'

‘Who knows and who cares? And don't try and eat with them as they don't share the table with people not of their religion, apparently. Not that I suppose you were planning on making friends with them.' He looked over at Philo who had seated himself beneath a pergola in front of the villa, at the garden's centre, and was greeting each of his companions in turn and telling each one, at length, of his ordeal. ‘Have the lads guard the gate to the gardens. I've explained to Philo that they should stay here for their own safety and warned him that the common people are still angry with him and he faces fresh humiliation at the unwashed hands of the hoi polloi until I can talk to their leaders and clear up the misunderstanding that sparked it all off.'

‘Are you really going to do that?'

‘Bollocks I am. No, I've got business with Sempronius to pursue and a patronising middle-man to pull down from his perch.'

‘Postumus disappeared a couple of hours before they found the body soon after dawn,' Marius informed Magnus when he arrived back at the tavern at midday. ‘They pulled the poker out and took it back to Sempronius who was sacrificing at their lares altar. He left as soon as he'd finished the ritual and arrived back at his headquarters looking as if he wouldn't mind heating up the poker and using it on someone himself.'

Magnus took a deep draught of the warm, spiced wine that he was cradling in both hands and reflected for a few moments. Servius shuffled his accounts scrolls on the table next to him. ‘So, what happened to Postumus?'

Marius shrugged. ‘We smelt fresh-baked bread, so I gave him some money to go and get a couple of loaves and some hot wine but he never came back. I reckon he spent my money in a brothel on the Vicus Patricius; he was very aroused after the poker episode.'

Magnus nodded in agreement. ‘He'll turn up and you can shake him for the money. As for Sempronius, I reckon that we can expect a revenge attack. We should double the lads watching our border with the West Viminal and give them some speedy small boys to run messages. Meanwhile, I need Sempronius to come into possession of a piece of information that will, I hope, be too much for him to resist.'

‘What's that, brother?'

‘I want him to find out that I'm doing business with Tatianus and that I owe him an outstanding thousand denarii for a delivery that is due to arrive tomorrow, but since the theft of that money I'm struggling to raise the cash in time. Tatianus has said that he will sell the item to the first comer with the correct coinage even though I've already put down the deposit of a thousand.'

Servius rubbed his clouded eyes. ‘Tatianus has been known to do that before. He always says that the deposit only guarantees that he will keep the consignment for a few hours and after that
he'll sell to the first person with the right money so that he doesn't compromise himself by having illegal goods on his property for too long.'

‘Exactly; we have a precedent so Sempronius will believe it. And I'll bet he would love to get hold of what I wanted to buy just to prevent me from having it. Plus, to do that using my money would please him greatly.'

‘But what's he going to do with a Scorpion?'

‘Doesn't matter, the point is that he'll think he's stopped us doing whatever we were going to do with it and it will have cost him nothing in real terms.'

‘And what happens if he gets it?'

‘Then he'll be the one who has to explain himself to the Urban Prefect.'

‘But then the job will be off.'

Magnus took another sip of wine. ‘What I've just learnt from Senator Pollo means that the job's already off at the moment unless I can do some deep thinking to retrieve it. I'm just trying to make the best of the situation and make things uncomfortable for Sempronius and inconvenient for Tatianus. But first I need to plant the seed.'