Time to Depart (2 page)

III

Smiling, Petro passed one big hand over his brown hair. He seemed to have been having at styled more snappily. (Well, it was shorter; that was his barber's creative limit.) His other great paw lay lightly at his waist, where the staff of his office was stuck behind a wide, creased leather belt that I remembered him buying from a shifty Celt in Londinium. Otherwise, apart from the flash haircut, he did not trouble to preen himself up like a man of fashion. On duty it was better to be protected by a leather jerkin that might deflect a knife blade and a thick wool cloak which would shrug off the mud if he hurled himself to the pavement when tackling a runaway. His boots had come up hard on quite a few doorframes too by the looks of them.

'So who was the high-principled, public-minded citizen who squealed about Balbinus?' I asked.

'A donkey's turd called Nonnius.'

'Not Nonnius Albius? I thought he was a racketeer himself?'

'He had been. He actually worked with Balbinus, was his chief rent collector. That was what appealed to me.'

'Of course! You needed an insider.'

'No one else could have done it. Nonnius was ideal.' 

'But he was a Balbinus boy. How did you sew him up?' 

'A sad story.' Petro grinned. 'He's dying. His doctor had just put the frighteners on. Poor old Nonnius is suffering from terminal rot.'

'Something nasty that people don't talk about?'

'Same as his profession!' Petro snarled. Then he told me the story: 'Back in the spring, I just happened to learn that Nonnius had been given notice to quit by his pet medicine man - '

'Happened?' This seemed a nice coincidence.

Petro was in full flow and not to be sidetracked by my scepticism. 'Nonnius gets informed by some pet Aesculapius that he's finished, but the doctor sap he'll last longer if he takes care of himself - no worries, lots of pampering-'

'Expensive!' I was beginning to see Petro's reasoning.

'A life of luxury prescribed! So I get to him when he's just reeling from the bad news, I lend a sympathetic ear, then I put it to him he's spent his life running around for Balbinus while that rat lay on a reading couch counting his winnings - and for what? Now seems the time for a spot of levelling. Since Nonnius has to give up the low life, he soon settles on snatching at the high life to compensate. This appeals to the bastard: taking a litter through the Forum, giving orders to slaves through the window and greeting fawning admirers who are hoping for free gifts. Even more than that, suddenly he loves the idea of robbing Balbinus.'

I laughed shortly. 'The loyalty of thieves! So he was prepared to testify?'

'In return for the traditional reward.'

'You did a deal?'

'All legal. He appeared before Marponius and twittered like a happy song finch. In return, as a successful prosecutor he can seize a proportion of Balbinus' traceable assets. The only disincentive is that he has to help us trace them. But it's well worth his while to hire accountants. Having been on the money-collecting side himself he knows the occasional fellow with a dodgy abacus, imaginative enough to guess where the loot may be hidden.'

'I love it!' I was laughing. We both grabbed more wine, which now tasted almost palatable. 'But Petro, you must have needed to take great care framing the actual charge against Balbinus. What did you throw at him?'

'Murder. The only count that would have worked.' 

'Of course. It had to be a capital offence.'

'Anything less and he would only end up with a fine - and however large, a fine wouldn't choke him. He could shed thousands and hardly feel a tickle.'

I didn't say it, but putting Balbinus in court on any charge that left him free in Rome afterwards would have placed Petro himself in a very dangerous position. There was no point dwelling on this feature. He knew all right. 

'So who had been topped - and how did you nail Balbinus for the murder?' I didn't suppose he had actually stuck a dagger in someone personally. 'Getting blood spots on his own tunic was never his style.'

'Happy accident,' said Petro. 'It happened at Plato's Academy.' The brothel we had already mentioned. 'They specialise in fleecing foreign visitors. Some poor Lycian had been set up to lose his travelling pouch in the floor-creeping gag. While the girl was giving him the push-and-shove that he'd paid for, he made the mistake of noticing a rustle in the straw. Up he jumps, and discovers the whore's accomplice just reaching for his money. Instead of making a discreet complaint to the madam, then leaving the brothel with an apology and a wiser attitude, this fool puts up his fists and makes a fight of it. The snatcher was so surprised at the Lycian's unsporting behaviour that he knifed him on the spot.'

I whistled. 'Someone should hand out warnings to innocent travellers! But how did you prove it? Surely the brothel's mother hen was used to denying all knowledge of trouble?'

'Oh yes. Lalage's well up to it. I'd never have pinned her down, and I'm not sure I'd even have fancied tackling her... Thank Jupiter Plato's is on the Sixth Cohort's beat, and I don't normally have the problem.' I saw his point. The whores who crowded around the Circus Maximus were as fierce as lynxes, and Lalage, the madam at Plato's, had a phenomenal reputation. 'There was a witness,' Petro told me grimly. 'And for the first time in history it was a witness who managed not to yell at the scene of the crime. So instead of the usual turn-up where the witness gets stabbed too, he hid up in the rafters until he had a chance to run away.'

'Unbelievable.'

'Better yet, one of my men then found him wandering in shock up on the Hill. He blurted out his tale, and we went straight to Plato's. The Sixth were nowhere in sight - that's normal - so we handled it ourselves. We were able to jump from an alley just as two bouncers were dragging the corpse out through the back door. That pegged the crime to the brothel. So for a start, when we went into court half the Thirteenth-sector Watch had seen Plato's management towing the Lycian to a gutter by the boot-thongs, with Lalage herself holding a lamp. Next we had our witness to narrate the stabbing luridly. He was a second Lycian who had been smuggled in by the first one. The pair were hoping to slip the girl a copper and get a double spike half-price.'

I slapped the table. 'Disgraceful! How can you police the city when even the victims are crooks?'

'Falco, I'll live with it! I locked our witness in protective custody, lost the address until he was needed, then produced him at the Basilica in his best tunic to tell how he had trembled in his hiding place and seen all. He identified the prostitute, the madam, and the creeping snatch.'

'Do I know the snatch?'

'A weasel called Castus.'

It meant nothing. I didn't ask if I knew the prostitute, and Petro didn't bother to embarrass anyone by naming her. 'So what about your star witness? What about Nonnius?'

'We were well set up by the time our barrister called him. All Nonnius Albius had to do was to confess his own role as a Balbinus collector, and state that he knew the killer Castus was on the Balbinus payroll. He played his part very prettily - he even produced tallies to show the percentage Balbinus regularly took from stolen purses at the brothel.'

'Good value!'

'A prime witness. Our Lycian had come up with some joyful clinchers, like Castus exclaiming as he stabbed the dead man, "Teach him to argue with Balbinus!" Nonnius then told the juty that all the Balbinus henchmen are routinely ordered to slash if trouble threatens. He had frequently heard Balbinus give those instructions. So we had him for organised crime, profiteering, and conspiracy, resulting in actual death.'

'The jury bought it?'

'Marponius had explained to them that he needed their co-operation if he was to be seen as the judge who cleaned up Rome. . .'

Marponius was the main judge in the murder court. He was keen on his work, and personally ambitious, though not necessarily as blatant as Petronius made out. For one thing, Marponius was not a clever man.

'There were some juicy details,' Petro said. 'I was threatening Lalage with a range of offences against the prostitutes' registration rules, so even she went into court to give evidence on our side.'

'Couldn't Balbinus buy her off?'

'I reckon she's keen to see him take a trip,' opined Petronius. Lalage would be quite capable of running Plato's on her own. Maybe things were different once, but nowadays she really doesn't need a king of crime creaming off the top of her income.' He leant back and went on with his usual modesty: 'Oh I had some luck in the timing. Balbinus believed himself untouchable, but there was a new mood in the underworld. People were ready to revolt. I noticed the change before he did, that's all.'

The point was, Petronius Longus had noticed. Many an enquiry captain would have had his nose so close to the pavings he wouldn't have spotted the flies on the balcony.

'Take your credit for sniffing the air,' I commanded. 'And then for fixing it!'

He smiled quietly.

'So your jury convicted, and Marponius did his own career some pod by handing out a death penalty - I presume the Assembly ratified the sentence. Did Balbinus appeal any further?'

'Straight to Vespasian - and it came straight back: negative.'

'That's something!' I commented. We were both cynics about the Establishment. 'Who signed the chitty?'

'Titus.'

'Vespasian must have approved.'

'Oh yes.' Only the Emperor has the final power of removing life from a Roman citizen, even if the citizen's life smells like a pile of cat's turds. 'I was quite impressed by the quick response,' Petro admitted. 'I don't really know whether Balbinus offered money to officials, but if he tried it he was wasting his time. Things at the Palace seem to be scented like Paestum violets nowadays.' One good result of the new Flavian Caesars. Graft had gone over the balcony with Nero, apparently. Petro seemed confident anyway. 'Well it was the result I wanted, so that's that.'

'Here we are!' I congratulated him. 'Ostia at dawn!'

'Ostia,' he agreed, perhaps more cautiously. 'Marponius gets a free meal at the Palace; I get a scroll with a friendly message from Titus Caesar; the underworld gets a warning -'

'And Balbinus?'

'Balbinus,' growled Petronius Longus bitterly, 'gets time to depart.'

IV

I suppose it is a comfort to us all - we who carry the privilege of being full citizens of the Empire - to know that except in times of extreme political chaos when civilisation is dispensed with, we can do what we like yet remain untouchable.

It is, of course, a crime for any of us to profiteer while on foreign service; commit parricide; rape a vestal virgin; conspire to assassinate the Emperor; fornicate with another man's slave; or let amphorae drop off our balconies so as to dent fellow citizens' heads. For such evil deeds we can be prosecuted by any righteous free man who is prepared to pay a barrister. We can be invited before a praetor for an embarrassing discussion. If the praetor hates our face, or merely disbelieves our story, we can be sent to trial, and if the jury hates us too we can be convicted. For the worst crimes we can be sentenced to a short social meeting with the public strangler. But, freedom being an inalienable and perpetual state, we cannot be made to endure imprisonment. So while the public strangler is looking up a blank date in his calendar, we can wave him goodbye.

In the days of Sulla so many criminals were skipping punishment, and it was obviously so cheap to operate, that finally the law enshrined this neat dictum: no Roman citizen who was sentenced to the death penalty might be arrested, even after the verdict, until he had been given time to depart. It was my right; it was Petro's right; and it was the right of the murderous Balbinus Pius to pack a few bags, assume a smug grin, and flee.

The point is supposed to be that living outside the Empire is, for a citizen, a penalty as savage as death. Balbinus must be quaking. Whoever thought that one up was not a travelling man. I had been outside the Empire, so my verdict was not quite that of a jurist. Outside the Empire can be perfectly liveable. Like anywhere, all you need to survive comfortably is slightly more cash than the natives. The sort of criminals who can afford the fare in the first place need have no qualms.

So here we were. Petronius Longus had convicted this mobster of heinous crimes and placed him under sentence of death-but he was not allowed to apply a manacle. Today had been set for the execution. So this morning, while the greybeards from the Senate were tuning away over the decay of public order, Balbinus Pius would stroll out of Rome like a lord and set off for some hideaway. Presumably he had already filled it with golden chalices, with rich Falernian to slosh into them, and with fancy women to smile at him as they poured the happy grape. Petro could do nothing - except make damn sure the bastard went.

Petronius Longus was doing that with the thoroughness his friends in Rome would expect - Linus, the one dressed an sailor, had been listening in more closely than the other members of the squad. As his chief started listing for me the measures he was taking, Linus slewed around on his bench and joined us. Linus was to be a key man in enforcing the big rissole's exile.

'Balbinus lives in the Circus Maximus district, unluckily -' Petro began.

'Disaster! The Sixth Cohort run that. Have we hit some boundary nonsense? Does that mean it's out of your watch and you can't cover his house?'

'Discourteous to the local troopers... .' Petro grinned slightly. I gathered he was not deterred by a bit of discourtesy to the slouchers in the Sixth. 'Obviously it's had to be a joint operation. The Sixth are escorting him here.'

I grinned back. 'Assisted by observers from your own cohort?'

'Accompanied,' said Petro pedantically. Looked forward to seeing what form this might take.

'Of course you trust them to do the job decently?'

'Does he -heck!' scoffed Linus, only half under his breath.

Linus was a young-looking thirty, dressed for his coming role in more layers of tunics than most sailors wear, crumpled boots, a floppy hat his mother had knitted, and a seaman's knife. Below the short sleeves of the tunics his bare arms had a chubby appearance, though none of Petro's men were overweight. Level eyes and a chin square as a spade. I had never met him before, but could see he was lively and keen. A typical Petro recruit.

'So the Sixth carry the big rissole here, then he's handed over to you?' I smiled at Linus. 'How far does this slave-driver want you to go with him?'

'All the way,' answered Petro for himself.

I shot Linus a look of sympathy, but he shrugged it off. 'A lad likes to travel,' he commented. 'I'll see him land the other side. At least the esteemed Petronius says I don't have to shin up rigging on the journey back.'

'Big of him! Where's the rissole going?'

'Heraclea, on the Taurica peninsula.'

I whistled. Was that his choice?'

'Someone made a very strong suggestion,' came Petro's dry response. 'Someone who does have the right to feed him to the arena lions if he fails to listen to the hint.' The Emperor.

'Someone has a sense of humour then. Even Ovid only had to go to Moesia.'

The world had shrunk since emperors sent salacious poets to cool their hexameters on the lonely shores of the Euxine Sea while other bad citizens were allowed to sail to Gaul and die rich as wine merchants. The Empire stretched far beyond Gaul nowadays. Chersonesus Taurica, even further away on the Euxine than Ovid's bleak hole, had vivid advantages as a dump for criminals: though technically not a Roman province, we did have a trading presence all along its coast, so Balbinus could be watched - and he would know it. It was also a terrible place to be sent. If he wasn't eaten by brown bears he would die of cold or boredom, and however much money he managed to take with him, there were no luxuries to spend it on.

'It's no summer holiday for you either,' I told Linus. 'You'll never get home this side of Saturnalia.'

He accepted the news cheerily. 'Someone needs to make sure Balbinus doesn't nip off the ship at Tarentum.' True. Or Antium, or Puteoli, or Paestum, Buxentum or Rhegium, or Sicily, or at any one of scores of seashore towns in Greece, and the islands, and Asia, that would lie on our criminal's way into exile. Most of these places had an ambiguous form of loyalty towards Rome. Some were run by Roman officials who were only looking for a rest. Many were too remote to be supervised even by officials who liked to throw their weight about Petronius Longus was rightly distraught about making the penalty stick. Linus, however, seemed to take his responsibility placidly. 'This is my big chance to travel. I don't mind wintering at some respectable town in Bithynia, or on the Thracian coast.' Petro's stooge had looked at a map, then.

'Will you get your lodging paid, Linus?'

'Within the limits,' Petronius uttered sombrely, resisting any frivolous suggestion that Linus might be heading for a spree at the state's expense.

'Anything for a bit of peace!' said Linus. Evidently there was a woman involved.

Well, we were all henpecked. Not that most of us would have entertained four or five months beyond the Hellespont at the worst time of year simply to avoid having our ears battered. Linus could not have mastered the gracious art of sloping off to the public baths for half a day (a set of baths you are not known to frequent).

Martinus appeared in the doorway. He gave Petronius a signal that was barely more than a twitch.

'They're coming! Scram, Linus.'

With a grin I can still remember, Linus slid from his bench. Keyed up for adventure, he was out of the wine bar and off back to the Chersonesus-bound ship while the rest of us were still bringing our thoughts to bear.

We had paid for the wine. We all left the bar in silence. The landlord closed the door after us. We heard him fasten it with a heavy log, pointedly.

Outside the darkness had altered by several shades. The wind freshened. As we regained the quay Fusculus shook a shin that must have had cramp, while we all adjusted our swords and freed them from our cloaks. Nervously we strained to listen for the sound we really wanted to hear above the creaks of ropes and boards, and the plashing of wavelets under buffers, floats and hulls.

We could make out a movement on the harbour road, though still only faintly. Martinus must have honed his ears for this mission if he had heard something earlier.

Soon the noise clarified and became brisk hoofbeats, then we picked out wheels as well, somewhere in their midst. Almost at once a short cavalcade clattered up, the iron shoes of the horses and mules ringing loud. At the centre was an exceptionally smart carriage of the type very wealthy men own for comfortable summer visits to their remote estates - big enough to allow the occupant to eat and write, or to try to forget being shaken by potholes and to sleep. Balbinus was probably not napping on this journey.

A couple of freedmen who must have decided, or been persuaded, that they could not bear to leave their master hopped off the top and began unloading a modest selection of luggage. Balbinus had lost all his slaves. That was part of stripping him of his property. What his freedmen did now was up to them. Soon they would possess more civic rights than he did - though they might still feel they owed familial debts to the master who had once freed them. Whether they saw it that way would depend on how many times he had kicked them for nothing when they were still slaves.

So far the rissole had remained inside his carriage. It was a heavy, four-wheeled special, all gleaming bright coachwork and silver finials, drawn by two lively mules with bronze snaffles and millefiori enamels on their headbands. The driver enjoyed making play with his triple-thonged whip; the mules took it calmly, though, some of our party cantered uneasily when he suddenly cracked the thing above our heads. We were on edge - still waiting for the big moment. Dark curtains across the carriage's windows were hiding the occupant.

Petronius walked forwards to greet the office's of the Sixth watch who had escorted the man from Rome. I stayed at his shoulder. He introduced Arica and Tibullinus, whom he knew. Tibullinus appeared to be the man in charge. He was a truculent, untidy centurion; and I didn't like him much. With them was Porcius, a young recruit of Petro's who had been formally attached to them as an observer. He lost himself among the rest of the Sixth's enquiry team rather rapidly.

While we were going through the formalities, another couple of horses turned up. Their riders slid down, then they too joined us, openly nodding to Petro.

'What's this?' cried Tibullinus, sounding annoyed, though he tried to hide it. 'Checking up? On the Sixth?'

'Far be it from me to slander the meticulous Sixth!' Petro assured him. He was a devious bastard when he chose. 'Just a couple of lads I told to lend a hand when they'd finished something else. Looks like they only just caught up with you ..

Everyone realised his couple of lads had attached themselves to the Sixth and their not-quite prisoner for the whole journey - and that the men of the Sixth had failed to notice they were being tagged. They should have known, it could have been any kind of ambush. We left it at that, before things became too sensitive.

Something was about to happen.

There was a moment's unnatural atmosphere, then everyone straightened and grew watchful. The carriage door creaked as it opened. Then Balbinus emerged.