Shadows in Bronze (7 page)

Part Two

A TOURIST IN CROTON

SOUTHERN ITALY (Magna Graecia)

Several days later

..
Croton, a very ancient city, once the foremost in Italy… If you are a sophisticated type and you can take incessant lying, you are following the right road to riches. You see, in this city no literary pretensions are honoured, eloquence has no standing, sobriety and decent behaviour are not praised and rewarded
...

PETRONIUS, The Satyricon

XII

Vespasian had signed a travel pass for me. I screwed this treasure out of his clerks and picked up a state mule from a stable at the Capua Gate. The ancient watchtower still stands at the start of the Appian Way, though the city has expanded beyond into a quiet suburb, popular with the more discerning type of millionaire. Helena Justina's father lived hereabouts so I delivered her box of recipes and I dare say she would have had me in for a few words of thanks, but she was a sociable lady with a life of her own and the door porter claimed she was not there.

Young Janus and I had had run-ins before. The Camillus family never needed a floor mosaic to say beware of their dog; this two-legged specimen of human mange drove off enquirers before they edged a sandal in the door. He was about sixteen. He had a very long face, which gave plenty of scope for his current flush of acne, with a very short brain cavity on top; the brain inside was an elusive piece of plasma. Talking to him always made me tired.

I refused to believe these were Helena's orders. She was capable of dispatching me on a one-way ferry to Hades, but if she wanted to do it she would tell me herself. Still; it solved one problem. Telling her I was not going to see her again would be difficult if they never let me in.

I asked where she was; sonny didn't know. I informed the porter pleasantly that I knew he must be lying because even when she becomes a batty old harridan with no hair or teeth, Helena Justina will be much too well-organized to sail off in her sedan chair without a word to her staff. Then I left friendly greetings for the senator, left Helena's box, and left Rome.

Which I hate. At Capua the Via Appia took its route towards Tarentum in the Heel of Italy while I turned west, heading for the Toe. Now I was on the Via Popilia, for Rhegium and Sicily, aiming to strike off it just before the Messana Strait.

I had to cross Latium, Campania and Lucania, and go deep into Bruttium - half the length of Italy; I seemed to be travelling for days. After Capua came Nola, Salernum, Paestum, Velia, Buxentum, then a long hike close against the Tyrrhenian shore until the road to Cosentia in the far south. There the ground climbed abruptly as I peeled off the highroad to cross the peninsula. It was then the mule I had picked up at the last staging post turned tetchy on me, and I saw I had been right to dread a mountain rollicking.

Cosentia: provincial capital of the Bruttii. A hunchbacked collection of single-storey shacks. It was up in the hills, hard to get at, and had not been as important as the Bruttians' second city, Croton, for several hundred years. Still, Cosentia was their capital; odd tribe, the Bruttii.

I stayed a night at Cosentia, though I hardly slept. This was Magna Graecia: Greater Greece Rome had conquered Magna Graecia long ago; in theory. But I rode through its sullen territory with care.

The roads were almost empty now. At Cosentia only one other traveller stayed at the inn - the man I never saw. This fellow had his own pair of horses, which were what I recognized; a big roan that narrowly missed the grade as a flat-racer, and a skewbald pack animal. We had been running parallel from Salernum, if not longer, but I was always up and on the road before he appeared in the morning and by the time he caught up at night I had fallen into bed. If I had known he was still with me at Cosentia, I would have made an effort to stay up and make friends.

I hate the south. All those old-fashioned towns with massive temples to Zeus and Poseidon; all those schools of philosophy that make you feel inferior; all those sombre-faced athletes and the broody sculptors sculpting them. Not to mention their sky-high prices for strangers and their awful roads.

If you believe the Amid, Rome was founded by a Trojan; as I travelled the south my scalp crawled as if these Greek colonists had me marked as their ancient enemy in a Phrygian cap. People seemed to have nothing to do but lurk in their dusty porches watching strangers down the street. Cosentia was bad enough; Croton, thinking itself more important, was bound to be worse.

Crossing over to Croton involved serious alpine work. The temperature dropped as my road went on rising. Thick forests of chestnut and Turkey oak covered the Sila plains, then beeches and silver fir, while alders and aspens grappled onto the granite crags. Locals called this a good road; it was a wild and winding track. I never travelled after dusk; even in daylight I thought I heard mountain wolves. Once, when I was eating lunch in a sunny clearing full of wild strawberry plants, a viper slipped away behind a rock, eerily emerging from beneath my outstretched boot. I had felt safer swapping insults with the cutthroat Roman call girls at the Circus Maximus.

Snowcaps still lay on the peaks but the naval contractors had started trekking up for seasoned logs, so smoke from their bonfires sharpened the thin air. My nose dribbled as I drew off the path among wayside violets to overtake oxen with long wagons that swayed under the boles of mighty trees. The crumpled plain rose a thousand feet and higher above the sea. In Rome summer was approaching, but here the climate lagged. Everywhere was dripping in the thaw; furious torrents rushed along deep river valleys and icy spring water quenched my thirst.

I forged alone through this rough terrain for a couple of days. Above the Neaethus Valley a spectacular view opened onto the Ionian Sea. I descended among cultivated olives and vines, yet the landscape became scarred with erosions and pimpled with weird cones of clay, stranded there by the summer rush of waterways which had dragged away all the looser topsoil, stripping the dry scenery like a savagely sucked fig. At length my road switchbacked again and I reached Croton, which lurks like a very painful bunion, just underneath the ball of Italy's big toe.

This place Croton had been Hannibal's last refuge in Italy. I reckoned if a heathen like Hannibal passed through here again, Croton would still be prepared to give him a free splash in the Municipal baths and honour him into exile with a banquet at the town's expense. But there was no friendly welcome for me.

I rode into Croton with a stream of sweat between my shoulder blades. The landlord at the official Inn was a lean laggard with eyes like slits who assumed I had come to check his records for the Treasury auditor; I declared haughtily I had not yet sunk so low. He examined me closely before he condescended to let me book in.

'Staying long?' he whined furtively, as if he hoped not.

'I don't expect so,' I answered, implying with pleasant Roman frankness that I hoped not to. 'I have to find a priest called Curtius Gordianus. Know anything about him?'

'No.'

I was certain he did. In Magna Graecia lying to Roman officials is a way of life.

I was in my own country yet I felt like a foreigner. These dry old southern towns were full of fine dust, ferocious insects, lumbering bylaws, and tight-knit corrupt local families who only honoured the Emperor if it suited their own pockets. The people looked Greek, their gods were Greek, and they spoke Greek dialects. When I strolled out to get my bearings in Croton, I found myself in trouble in the first half-hour.

XIII

A toga would have been out of place in Croton. Only the magistrates at the courthouse even possessed formal clothes. Luckily I never insult a strange city by appearing overdressed. I had an unbleached tunic beneath a long storm-grey cloak, with plain leather sandals and a soft cord for a belt. The remains of a good Roman haircut were discreetly growing out, but no one could object to that since my head was well-hidden under swoops of white cloth. I was not frightened of sunstroke; I was disguised as a priest.

A forum is the place to find people. I walked towards it, politely allowing the citizens of Croton the shadier side of the street. They were a pushy lot.

Croton was a shabby sprawl, full of buildings that had been shoved askew by earthquakes. Sour smells seeped out from cluttered alleys where peeling walls carried election notices for men I had never heard of. Dogs that looked like wolves from the Sila mountains scavenged alone or raced through the byways in yelping packs. On second-floor balconies overweight young women with bulging jewels and narrow eyes waited until I passed by, then passed lewd comments on my physique; I refused to answer back because these ladylike daughters of Croton were probably related to the best men in the town. Besides, as a priest I was too pious for witty street chat.

I was led to the Forum by the babble and a strong smell of fish.

I wandered through the market. Everyone else had a good stare. Their eyes followed me from stall to stall, while knives hesitated over swordfish far too long before crunching them into steaks. As I paused in the colonnade, I glimpsed a youth flitting round a pillar with a distinct air of having no real reason to be there; squinted directly at him, so if he was a pickpocket he would know I had spotted him. He disappeared.

The racket was appalling. They had some healthy produce though. There were sardines, sprats and anchovies all shimmering as brilliantly as new pewter candlesticks, and fresh vegetables that looked plump enough even for my mother, who grew up on a Campagna small-holding. The usual disasters too: piles of ever-so-shiny copperware that would stop looking special as soon as you got it home, and streamers of cheap tunic braid in unattractive colours that would bleed in the wash. After that came more mounds of watermelons; squids and sea snakes; fresh garlands for tonight's banquets and laurel crowns left over from yesterday at glossy knockdown prices. Crocks of honey; plus bundles of the herbs that had fed the bees.

All I did was ask the price of liquorice. Well, so I thought.

In Magna Graecia, everyone spoke Greek. Thanks to an exiled Melitan money changer who once lodged with my mother and paid my quarterly school fees (one of life's little bonuses), I had received the scratchings of a Roman education. Greek was my second language; I could strike up a pose then recite seven lines from Thucydicles, and I knew Homer was not just the name of my Uncle Scaro's dog. But my thin-bearded Thracian schoolmaster had left out the practical vocabulary a man needs for discussing razors with a barber in Buxentum, requesting a spoon with a snail-pick from a half-asleep waiter in Vella - or avoiding offence in Croton when bartering for aromatic herbs. I felt confident I knew the word for liquorice root; otherwise even for my mother (who expected a present from the south and had thoughtfully recommended what to buy), I would never have made the attempt. In fact, I must have inadvertently used some ripe old Greek obscenity.

The stallholder was a dwarf broad bean who had been left on life's vine until he turned leathery in the pod. He let out a yowl that attracted attention from three streets away. A tight crowd assembled, penning me against the stall. Elbowing forwards came some local layabouts whose idea of a good market day was beating up an unarmed priest. Under my tunic I had a safe-conduct signed by Vespasian, but down here they probably had not even heard yet that Nero had stabbed himself. Besides, my passport was in Latin which seemed unlikely to fill these shanty town bullies with respect.

I could not move because of the crowd. I assumed a haughty expression and pulled my religious veiling more securely over my head. I apologized to the herbseller in my best formal Greek. He jabbered more wildly. Stumpy Crotonese joined in. This was clearly the sort of friendly southern marketplace where peasants with shiny expressions and two left ears were just looking for a chance to set upon a stranger and accuse him of stealing his own cloak.

The rumpus was growing uglier. If I jumped over the stall they would grab me from behind, a cheap thrill I preferred to avoid. I kicked up one heel behind me to investigate the stall; it was just a trestle covered with cloth, so I dropped to the ground, gathered up my priestly garments, and scuttled under like a reclusive rat.

I came out between two piles of conical baskets, with my nose against the stallholder's knees. He seemed deaf to reason, so I bit him on the shin. He hopped back, shrieking; I scrambled out.

I now had one rickety table between me and a premature funeral. One glance at the multitude convinced me I really needed my little phallus amulet against the evil eye. (A gift from my sister Maia; so embarrassing I had left it at home.) The crowd swayed; the table lurched, then I crashed my hip so it toppled over towards the Crotonese. As they all jumped back I held up both hands in prayer.

'O Hermes Trismegistos -' (I'll pause here to mention that since I had been bound to tell my mother I was leaving Rome, the only divinity who might be watching my progress was Hermes the Thrice Great in his role as the patron of travellers, who must have been having his ear bent painfully by my ma.) 'Aid me, wing-footed one!' (If things were quiet on Mount Olympus he might be pleased to have an errand here.) 'Offer the protection of your sacred caduceus to a fellow messenger?'

I stopped. I hoped curiosity might encourage the bystanders to leave me alive. If not, it would take more than a loan of a winged sandal to hop free of this predicament.

No sign of young Hermes and his snaky staff. But there was a puzzled lull, another surge, then out of the surge leapt a bronzed, barefooted man in a curly-brimmed hat who vaulted the trestle straight at me. I was unarmed of course; I was a priest. He was flourishing a monstrous knife.

Yet I was safe. In a trice this apparition had his weapon at the liquorice merchant's throat. The blade was twinkling sharp - the sort sailors keep for slicing through dangerous tangles of rope on shipboard or murdering each other while they enjoy a drink ashore. He was more or less sober, but gave the impression that cutting out the lives of people who looked at him too closely was the way he relaxed.

He bawled at the crowd, 'One step closer, and I stick the herbalist!'

Then to me: 'Stranger - run for your life!'