Two For The Lions (26 page)

LI

UNLIKE THE GREEK stiffs of Cyrene, the easygoing millionaires of Sabratha looked to the western end of the Inner Sea for their profits, which were obviously magnificent. Their thoroughly modern trade was with Sicily, Spain, Gaul, and of course Italy; their prized commodities were not only the exotics brought in from the desert in caravans, but local olive oil, fish-pickle, and pottery. The streets of their fine city had become conduits for barter, crowded with shoving groups of many nationalities. It was clear that the old town on the seaboard would not long satisfy the wealthy, and those who were not already planning to expand into a more spacious area would be demanding smarter suburbs in the near future. It was the kind of town that within a couple of generations would become unrecognizable.

For the present, however, those who could afford the best lived east of the forum. In Sabratha the best was palatial. Hanno had a swank mansion with a Hellenistic ground plan but tip-top Roman decor. From the street door we passed through a small corridor to a courtyard surrounded by columns. A huge room spanned the far side of the yard, where plasterers on a trestle were remodeling a faded fresco of the Four Seasons into Our Master Courageously Hunting: Libyan lions, out-of-scale panthers, and a rather surprised spotty snake (with a dado of doves on a fountain and little bunny rabbits eating shrubs). Swags of deep-dyed curtaining brightened the doorways to side rooms. Hanno's taste in marble was extraordinary, and the low table where visitors deposited their sun hats was a huge slab of African hardwood polished so you could check today's deterioration in your pimples while you waited for the steward to report who had arrived.

He was not reporting to Hanno himself; Hanno was out of town. Still hunting, no doubt. His sister would be informed we notables had called. We could not seriously expect her to appear. However, she did.

Hanno's sister was a confident, stately, dark-skinned woman in her late forties wearing a bright turquoise robe. Her walk was slow, her head held high. A granular gold necklace that must have been as long as a hippodrome weighed down a bosom that was naturally formed to act as a platform for the contents of a very select jewel casket. A column of gem-set bangles occupied her left arm; her right was swathed in a multicolored shawl which she waved about. She was surprisingly cheery as she greeted us. What she said we could not tell, for like her brother she spoke Punic.

More practical and accommodating than Hanno, as soon as she realized the problem, she broke into a broad grin and sent for her interpreter. He was a small, slim, olivine, whiskery slave of eastern extraction in an off-white tunic: large sandals flapping on medium-sized feet, sturdy legs, quick eyes, and a mildly grumbling manner. He was evidently one of the family, his mutterings tolerated with a graceful wave of his mistress's hand.

Refreshments were produced. My companions tucked in; I apologized, especially for young Gaius. Hanno's sister, whose name was Myrrha, chucked Gaius under the chin (not something I would have risked), laughed a lot, and said she knew about boys; she had a nephew too.

I alluded to business in Lepcis and Oea, making a joke of my enforced visit here. We all laughed. The slave passed on my glowing compliments about Hanno, and my regret not to have found him at home. Then the man relayed back various courtesies from Myrrha to us. It was all tastefully polite. I could think of better ways to waste an afternoon.

As a rather forced silence fell in due course, Helena caught my eye to say we ought to leave. The statuesque Myrrha must have noticed, for she rose in response. Far from thanking the harsh gods of this neighborhood for her release from an unwanted bunch of foreigners, she then said that Hanno would be calling in at Lepcis Magna, for business reasons--something about hearing the results of a land survey. She, Myrrha, was about to take her own ship up the coast to meet her brother and would be delighted to carry us as well.

I consulted Helena. The interpreter, who seemed to do whatever he felt like, thought this was too boring to translate, so while we were muttering he dived into what Gaius had left on our refreshment tray. Myrrha, who was a stern disciplinarian apparently, gave the slave a piece of her mind. He just stared back defiantly.

Deep in the crannies of my heat- and travel-exhausted brain a memory stirred. I had been half conscious that this stately, straight-backed female seemed familiar. Suddenly I remembered why. I had seen her before, on an occasion when she had been expounding strong views in that formidable style to someone else. Her mention of owning her own sea transport also jogged my memory.

The last time I saw her was in Rome. It had been at the exercise yard at Calliopus' barracks on the Portuensis Road. She had been arguing then too--with a handsome young stud I had assumed must be her lover: but Hanno's sister must also be the woman who soon afterwards paid Calliopus for the release of that gladiator--the young bestiarius from Sabratha whom Calliopus had accused of killing Leonidas.

I turned to the slave. "The nephew Myrrha mentioned--does he have a name?"

"It's Iddibal," he told me, while the woman I had once refused to believe could be Iddibal's auntie looked on and smiled.

"And he's Hanno's son?"

"Yes of course."

I said that since his father had done me so many kindnesses, I would love to meet Hanno's boy sometime, and his aunt replied through her offhand interpreter that if we sailed up to Lepcis with her that would be a good opportunity because Iddibal had already gone there to meet up with his papa.

LII

MYRRHA's SHIP WAS an extremely large, rather elderly transport that we learned had been used in the past for taking beasts to Rome. Like her brother, and sometimes in partnership with him, she engaged in the export of animals for the amphitheater--though according to her she herself was a shy provincial who never left Sabratha. Because of the language barrier, conversations with her were rare, but once when we happened to have the interpreter to hand I asked, "The arena's a family occupation? Does your nephew also help Hanno in the wild beast trade?"

Yes, came the reply. Iddibal was in his twenties, a great hunter, and he relished the family business.

"No plans to send him to be polished up in Rome then?"

No, lied Auntie Myrrha blithely; Iddibal was a homeboy. We all smiled and said how wonderful it was, in our restless age, when young men were satisfied with their heritage.

Everything was extremely friendly, though I feared that would not last. Once we reached Lepcis and Myrrha started talking to Hanno and Iddibal, she would find out that I was the Census examiner. They would all realize that I knew Iddibal had worked for Calliopus. The only possible explanation was that he had been infiltrated into the rival establishment incognito--and that he was there to cause trouble. Once they conferred, this powerful family would realize that I knew more about their secret commercial activities than they liked to have revealed. Myrrha would probably be furious. Hanno, I thought, could become very dangerous indeed.

I decided to relax while we were aboard the aunt's ship. Once we disembarked I would be my own man again. When we were leaving Sabratha I had made Famia promise that as soon as he was tired of horse buying he would come back to Lepcis and pick us up. Even if he failed to show, when I had sorted out the business Scilla wanted, Helena and I could pay for our own passage home.

Sorting out the business for Scilla had suddenly acquired a new dimension. Allowance was needed for Hanno's influence--especially since according to Calliopus Iddibal had been tied up with whatever happened to Leonidas. Still, I could handle that.

I assumed that Calliopus had never known that Iddibal was a rival's son. Iddibal would never have left the barracks alive otherwise. In retrospect, it looked to me as if the young man might have been sent to Rome by his family specifically to foment a war between Calliopus and Saturninus. Public strife between those two would make them look unsound; when tenders were invited for the new amphitheater, Hanno would be able to clean up. Even if Pomponius Urtica had lived and had been prepared to back Saturninus with special patronage, the dirty tricks war would have deterred him. Pomponius would not have wanted to stain his own reputation by any association with such goings-on.

Sending in his son to cause provocation would have been a good ploy on Hanno's part, though risky to Iddibal personally. Apart from having to take part in mock hunts in the venatio, discovery would have put him at Calliopus' mercy. And once he signed up, he was stuck. He was trapped for life unless somebody could rescue him. As soon as he had aroused sufficient jealousy between the other two men--by inciting incidents like the escaped leopard and the ostrich poisoning, if nothing worse--then his father must have wanted to extract him as quickly as possible. But in theory that was impossible.

Iddibal could simply have run away. With outside help, it could have been arranged. Anacrites and I had known that his aunt had had money with her in Rome, and at least one servant (her present interpreter, I reckoned), plus a very fast ship waiting on the coast. But since Iddibal had become a gladiator, he was also a slave. That was a legal condition into which he could volunteer to put himself--but from which he could not then choose to withdraw. Only Calliopus could free him. If he ran off, Iddibal would be an outlaw for life.

His aunt must have been a stranger to Calliopus (well, she had told me she was a home-bird), whereas Hanno would certainly have been well known to him. So Myrrha must have volunteered to go to Rome to help the youth. The question was, especially since she obviously had to pay through the nose for his unorthodox release, how much did his family think Iddibal had achieved by then?

I was in no doubt now that Hanno wanted the two other lanistae to tear each other apart, while he watched from the sidelines and took over their leavings. So against all the odds, my enforced trip to Sabratha had given me a lead. Whatever went on last winter back in Rome, I reckoned Hanno's stirring partially explained how it all blew up.

That made me determined to interview young Iddibal.

LIII

FOR THE SAFETY of my family, I decided that as soon as possible I must shed Myrrha and distance myself from Hanno. The chance to do it occurred unexpectedly; choppy seas forced us to put in at Oea and rest up for half a day.

This was a bonus, offering me a chance to see Calliopus. I set off hotfoot into town and after hours of searching found his house, only to learn he too was away from home. Tripolitanian beast exporters seemed to spend a great deal of time on the hoof.

"A Roman took the master up coast on business," said a slave.

"Is the mistress here? Her name's Artemisia, isn't it?"

"She went with him."

"Where have they gone?"

"Lepcis."

Brilliant. Scilla was paying me to fix meetings for her with both Calliopus and Saturninus. We had expected they would have to be tackled individually--but Calliopus had preempted me of his own accord. If he was in Lepcis we could deal with both at once. If only all jobs were this easy. (On the other hand, if Scilla ran into them both in Lepcis before I arrived there, it struck me I might lose my fee.)

"Who was this man your master went with?"

"Don't know."

"He must have had a name?"

"Romanus."

Right. I was none the wiser, and irritated as well now.

"What did he say?"

"My master's old partner is to appear in court on a charge; my master has to give evidence."

This sounded suspiciously close to what I was supposed to arrange myself. The mad thought crossed my mind that "Romanus' could be Scilla herself in masculine disguise. She had the spirit--but of course, she liked to claim she was respectable. "What, is Calliopus on a charge too?"

"Just a witness." That could be a ruse to get him there.

"For or against?"

The slave looked disgusted. "Against, man! They hate each other. My master would never have gone otherwise."

What a wonderful scenario. If I had wanted a way to set the two men up, this was the perfect scheme; tell Calliopus he could help prosecute Saturninus. I wished I had thought of it.

So who did? Who was this mysterious character with the summons, and what, if any, was his interest in my case?

I walked back to the harbor. It was dark by now. The breeze that had driven us to shore lashed cold on my face but it was fading. I needed to consider my sudden feelings of uncertainty. The harbor had a long, attractive waterfront; I went for a stroll. Approaching me in the opposite direction came a man who looked obviously Roman. Like me he was mooching idly beside the ocean, in a deep, pensive mood.

No one else was about. We must have both reached the point of knowing that our private thoughts were leading nowhere. We both stopped. He looked at me. I looked at him. He was an upright figure, slightly too much flesh, sharp haircut, clean-shaven, bearing himself like a soldier though with too many years out of action to be an army professional.

"Good evening." He spoke with an unmistakable Basilica Julia accent. The greeting alone told me he was freeborn, patrician, tutor-educated, army-trained, imperially patronized, and statue-endowed. Wealth, ancestors, and senatorial self-confidence yodeled from his vowels.

"Evening, sir." I made a quiet legionary salute.

Two Romans far from our native city, protocol allowed us to accept this chance of exchanging news from home.

It was necessary to introduce ourselves.

"Excuse me, sir. You seem like the proverbial "one of us'--your name is not Romanus, I suppose?"

"Rutilius Gallicus." He sounded alarmed. Whoops. Titles are a sensitive matter. I had just accused a highly bred patrician of being a gutter rat with just one name. Still, the highbred one was out ambulating a harbor without his guards and flunkies. You could argue he had asked for it.

"Didius Falco," I returned. Then I hastened to reassure him that I could tell he was a man of rank. "Are you connected with the provincial governor in some way, sir?"

"Special envoy status. I'm surveying land boundaries." He grinned, looking eager to astonish me. "I have heard of you!" My face fell. "I've a message from Vespasian," he told me. "This is obviously of grave national importance: if I see you out here, Didius Falco, I am to instruct you to return to Rome for an interview about the Sacred Geese."

After I finished laughing, I had to tell him enough for him to realize just what an administrative shambles was involved. He took it well. He was a sensible, down-to-earth type of administrator himself, which must be why some vengeful clerk had sent him out here on a fool's errand to separate the rebellious landowners of Lepcis and Oea.

"I've just been here in Oea to receive representations from the top men." He sounded low. "Hopeless. I need to be out of here very fast tomorrow before they realize I'm coming down in favor of Lepcis. The plan is to announce my results at Lepcis, where the happy winners will ensure I'm not torn apart."

"What's the problem?"

"The towns were up in arms during the civil war. Nothing to do with Vespasian's accession--they just took advantage of the general chaos to fight a private battle over territory. Oea called in the Garamantes to help, and Lepcis was besieged. No doubt about it, Oea caused the trouble, so when I draw the new official lines I'll be hammering them."

"Lepcis gets the advantage?"

"It had to be one or the other, and Lepcis has the moral right."

"Time to flee from Oea!" I agreed. "How are you going?"

"On my ship," said Rutilius Gallicus. "If Lepcis is where you're heading, can I offer you a lift?"

On rare occasions you do meet officials who serve some use. Some will even help without having to be greased with a backhander first.

I managed to slide my party and their luggage off Myrrha's old boat while she and her people were at their evening meal. When it was all fixed, I told the interpreter that I had met an official I knew and hooked up with him. Rutilius Gallicus had a fast caravel that would soon outstrip Myrrha's bum-heavy hulk, and to help matters even further his fearless captain slipped anchor and took off by night.

"I know why I'm doing a flit. What's your hurry, Falco?" Rutilius asked curiously. I told him a little of the background to the dirty tricks war. He grasped the point immediately. "Struggling for dominance. This all runs parallel to the problems I came to adjudicate--" Rutilius was settling in for a lecture, not that I minded. I was at sea; my concentration was fixed on avoiding being ill. He could talk all night so long as it distracted me. We were out on deck, feeling the breeze as we leaned on the rail. "None of the Three Towns has access to enough fertile land. They occupy this coastal strip, with a high jebel protecting them from the desert. It makes a good climate--well, a better one than the arid interior--but they are stuck on a small plain between the mountains and the sea, plus only whatever they can irrigate inland."

"So what's their economy, sir? I thought they relied on trade?"

"Well they need to produce food, but in addition, Lepcis and Oea are trying to build up an olive oil industry. Africa Proconsular is proper is a grain basket, as I'm sure you know--I heard one estimate that Africa provides a third of all the corn we need in Rome. Here it's not suitable for so much cereal production, but olive trees do thrive and they need very little effort. I can see a time when Tripolitania will outstrip all the traditional outlets--Greece, Italy, Baetica."

"So where are these olive groves?"

"Inland, a lot of them. The locals have a very refined system of irrigation, and I've calculated on maybe a thousand or more farms totally geared to production of oil--hardly any living quarters, just huge milling equipment. But as I say, there is not enough land, even with careful resource management. Hence the fighting."

"Oea and Lepcis slogged it out, and Oea brought in the tribes? That was what caused Valerius Festus to pursue the Garamantes back into the desert?"

"Useful move. Lets them know who's in charge. We don't want to have to install a military presence too far south, purely to control nomads in the sand dunes. Pins down too many troops. Waste of effort and cash."

"Quite."

"As for your wild beast merchants, their problem is probably related to the land famine. Families who own too little ground to match their ambitions with produce are hunting the beasts to supplement their incomes."

"I think they enjoy it and are good at it too. What's driving them at present is the chance to make a huge profit when the new amphitheater opens."

"Exactly," said Rutilius. "But that's a long-term thing. The Flavian Amphitheater has a planned construction timetable of what--ten years? I've seen the design drawings. If it comes off, it will be a beautiful thing but simply quarrying the stone out on the Via Tiburtina will take time."

"They have had to build a whole new road to take the weight of the marble carts."

"There you are. You don't build one of the new wonders of the world overnight. While these beast suppliers are waiting to cash in, their business is extremely expensive, and since the Statilius Taurus arena burned down it's one with few immediate rewards. Capture, keeping the creatures, shipping them--all difficult and fiendishly pricey. They want to keep their organizations up to strength because the year the new amphitheater opens they will be working flat out. But I can tell you, your fellows are all in hock up to their earlobes, with no hope of balancing their budgets for a long time."

"They aren't doing too badly!" He didn't know I had seen their census returns. "Do you know the men I mean, sir?"

"I think so. I have had to meet and greet anyone who is anyone."

"Not to mention all the lesser dogs who just think they're big?"

"You obviously have a feel for government."

"Vespasian has been known to use me as an ad hoc diplomat."

Rutilius paused. "I know," he said. So he had been briefed. That was curious.

"And I was involved with the Census," I told him.

He pretended to gulp. "Oh you're that Falco!" I was certain he already knew. "I hope you're not out here to investigate me."

"Why?" I put to him in a light tone. "Is there something on your conscience?"

Rutilius left the personal question unanswered, implying he was innocent. "Is that how you worked? Offering people a chance to come clean, in return for a fair deal?"

"Eventually. We had to hammer a few subjects, but once word went around most chose to negotiate a settlement before we even started. These Tripolitanian beast importers formed our first caseload."

"Who were "we"?"

"I worked in partnership."

I fell silent, thinking how pleasant it was, not to have to think about Anacrites.

Then Rutilius, whose information had already surprised me, said something even more curious: "Someone else asked me about the beast importers recently."

"Who was that?"

"I presume you know, since you mentioned him."

"You've lost me."

"When we first met you asked if "Romanus' was my name."

"Somebody in Oea mentioned him. Have you encountered this person?"

"Once. He asked for an interview."

"Who is he? What's he like?"

Rutilius frowned. "He didn't really explain himself, and I could not decide what to make of him."

"So what was his story?"

"Well, that was the odd thing. After he had gone I realized he had never said what it was all about. He had got into my office with a general air of authority. He just wanted to know what I could tell him about a group of lanistae who had attracted interest."

"Interest from whom?"

"He never said. My feeling was, he was some sort of commercial informer."

"So were his questions specific?"

"No. In fact I couldn't see why I had let myself be bothered to speak to him, so I gave him a couple of addresses and got rid of him."

"Whose addresses?"

"Well, since we were in Lepcis at the time, your fellow Saturninus was one."

This all sounded suspiciously like some agent of Hanno's hard at work. That could well explain why Hanno was coming to Lepcis, "on business' as Myrrha had put it. She had mentioned the land survey, but maybe he wanted to reconnoiter with this new provocateur. Suppose Hanno had arranged to have Calliopus lured to Lepcis on some trumped-up legal excuse--and was intending a showdown with both rivals?

Whatever the truth of it, Scilla's wish to meet both men together could now be put in hand--with Hanno himself also available. It certainly looked as if Lepcis was the place to be.

"And did you see "Romanus' again?" I asked Rutilius.

"No. Though I wanted to, because of my errand for Vespasian. After he left, one of my clerks told me he had been asking if they had seen anything of you."