The children must have inherited their freckles from their mother. She never appeared; I soon gathered she was dead – probably exhausted and deceased in childbirth, judging by the perilous number of offspring she had left behind.

  Silanus was a stocky, pockmarked fellow with the faint tetchiness craftsmen have, caused by the anxieties of sole trading. As a gesture to personality, he wore a bracelet on his upper left arm that was pretending to be gold. His tunic was dull and ragged, but he was in work clothes so that told me nothing. The stock in his shop was good: well-made, fancy Greek-style acroteria for roof finials, a few gargoyles, routine racks of tiles and wall flues, plus the usual decorative wares for the home, plant tubs and balcony trays. It was all handsome. I would have bought from him.

  He gave the impression he wanted to be friendly, but was biting it back. I softened him up, mainly by telling him how much cash I had brought for his uncle and aunt. He was stuck in an awkward situation. His relatives had mysteriously vanished. They had no children. As the only nephew, he felt obliged to take charge, though he did not even know if Primilla and Modestus were alive. Unlike me, he felt he had no legal position as an heir, so was not free to negotiate.

  I sympathised. ‘So what happened? I work in this line; maybe I can give you advice.’ Silanus was not the type to trust informers, or even to know what we did. ‘Silanus, whatever has gone on? I saw their house at Antium; it’s quite deserted. Your uncle and aunt must have had staff, but they too have dematerialised. Have you brought the slaves here?’

  Appreciating his practical difficulties must have won his trust. Silanus sighed. ‘They ran away. I haven’t started a fugitive-hunt. Let them go, if they can make a life.’ This man was neither greedy nor vindictive. A decent sort. Not something I often came across. I tried not to find it suspicious.

  He seemed upset about his missing aunt and uncle, troubled by the situation, completely dispirited. ‘I was told that my uncle left first, then my aunt went to look for him. She had the sense to order one of their slaves to come and tell me, if she too vanished.’

  ‘So where did Primilla and Modestus go?’

  ‘You don’t want to know, Falco.’

  I was agog. ‘Try me.’

  ‘They went to see the Claudii.’ Silanus spoke as if I ought to know what that meant. When I merely raised my eyebrows, he went back to the start of the story. ‘Uncle and Auntie owned property, farmland. Made their money that way, originally, but you know how it is. Nobody stays on the plain, because they soon get sick. Anyone sick soon passes away. Only slaves can be persuaded to stay there for husbandry. People who can afford to move do so. They come up to the hills or go over to the coast. So about twenty years ago Modestus became an art dealer in Antium – though they always kept their land.’

  ‘My father did business with them, as I told you; Geminus knew them for a long time … So whatever happened?’

  ‘A boundary dispute flared up. I knew about it – squabbles have been grumbling on for years. Some of their neighbours are notoriously difficult to deal with. A few months ago cattle strayed on to Uncle’s land and did a lot of damage. Modestus likes to assert his rights – he went to have it out. He never came back. Aunt Primilla is a spunky woman herself; she set off to find him. She too has never been seen since.’

  ‘These neighbours are the Claudii you mentioned? … So have you reported it? Called in the authorities?’

  ‘I did my best. It was a long time before I heard anything. Once I knew my folks had gone missing, I had to get someone to look after my business before I could go over to Antium. I managed to interest the local magistrate. A posse went to investigate. They found nothing. The Claudii all denied ever seeing my relatives. So nothing can be done.’

  ‘That sounds feeble!’

  ‘Ah well … it’s the badlands, Falco. Strangers don’t go there.’

  ‘What – upset the web-footed marsh sprites and they drown you?’ I was amazed. ‘Troublemaking is a homely Pontine tradition and everyone has to put up with it?’

  As I raved, Silanus looked boot-faced. ‘The fact is, Falco, I know perfectly well what happened. My aunt and uncle upset the wrong people and have paid for it. Nobody can find any trace of them. No one locally saw anything. There is no evidence. So I’m not going to tackle the Claudii and be made to disappear myself, am I? So yes, that is how bullies get away with it – but no, I will not leave my children orphans.’

  I asked if he wanted to hire me to investigate. He said no. Partly, that was a relief. I was reluctant to do country work. Especially in the Pontine Marshes. That’s suicide.

  This would not have done for me, yet I did understand why Sextus Silanus was letting the mystery rest. He was practical. How many times had I advised clients to take such a sensible route (and how many had ignored me)?

  Regarding the money Pa owed, we agreed that I would hand it over and call the account closed. Silanus would bank the cash at the Temple of Juno Sospes, until enough time passed for him to feel he could have it himself. Realistically, that would be soon. One glance at all the children he was bringing up said it. And I did not blame him.

  He came out to collect the money. Shooing his freckled infants off the cart, he confirmed he was a single-handed parent; he had six under fourteen.

  I bought a load of his fine terracotta wares. It would pay a few food bills for him, and anyway I liked the stuff. Albia helped me choose.

  As Silanus waved us off, he asked, with a desperation I could almost forgive, ‘Your daughter seems a very nice young lady – Does she have a husband, Falco?’

  ‘Get lost!’ Albia and I roared in unison.

  Bad timing, Silanus.

  XI

  This strange disappearance of two respectable art dealers continued to haunt me. Driving allows you time to muse. Still, I had concerns of my own. If Silanus wanted to abandon hope, it was depressing, but his own affair. I went on my way, relieved of the cash and freed up to sell the statues. The curious episode was over.

  Or was it? I should have known better.

  The Via Appia is a legendary highway built four hundred years ago by Appius Claudius. It runs down across the Pontine Marshes, straight as a javelin for fifty miles between Rome and Tarracina. That entails causeways where it crosses swamps, but the northern part is wide, well-paved and, if your donkey can summon the energy, pleasantly fast. I had hired a decent working beast; she didn’t bite or lie down in the gutter, though nor did she exert herself. We trickled sedately down a sliproad and hit the famous highway just before it climbed the Alban Hills, passing Lakes Nemi and Albanus.

  Giving a friendly lecture to Albia (who barely responded) I had to admit that Appius, a great builder who also constructed the first Roman aqueduct, was better than average, for a patrician. As a freeborn city boy, I found some of his policies questionable – allowing the sons of manumitted slaves to enter the Senate and extending the vote to rural folk who owned no land. Still, Appius Claudius also published the law, stopping the priests from keeping it as their private mystery. That made him a patron of informers.

  We went north for ten miles. With only another two or three to go, we reached the tombs among the stone pines that line the approach to Rome’s Twelfth District. On a bright and baking afternoon this sometimes lonesome vicinity made for good travelling. We hit shade. I was cheerful; I could detect the smell of home and the donkey could sniff her stable. Albia just snuffled miserably but soon I could hand her over to Helena.

  Then we ran into the vigiles. Since the Twelfth is looked after by the Fourth Cohort, these were a section of Petro’s men.

  Outside the city boundary, discipline evaporated. Some, inevitably, were lying under pine trees for a nap. However, others applied themselves fairly well. They told me they were on the case Petronius had told me about: the corpse dumped in a mausoleum. One ritual laying-out was not enough for Petro. Armed with crowbars and a love of violence, his troops were bashing open mausoleums and peering inside for other bodies that ought not to be there. In the crumbly roadside necropolis, many tombs were so ancient nobody knew who built them. They were easy to search, once the vigiles scraped the sleeping vagrants off their worn old entrance steps. Others, even the oldest, were still used by families; thanks to good diet and our nation’s virility, some Roman clans had long pedigrees.

  One cranky owner must have stipulated he had to be present; I saw Tiberius Fusculus, Petro’s trusty, hiding his impatience while the blighted toff fumbled interminably with a padlock. I pulled up the cart and when Fusculus was free again, he strolled over. He was overweight, hot and red-faced. Albia gave him a drink of water. ‘Take it all. Who cares?’ She dispensed her generosity with airy fatalism, as if she herself did not care if she died of thirst.

  Avoiding Albia’s aggression like a wise man, Fusculus told me that no more corpses had been found. ‘Well, plenty –’ Fusculus joked, ‘– but none we link to the case.’

  ‘Will Petronius pull you off it soon?’

  ‘Not yet, Falco. Obstinate beggar is convinced we have turned up a ritual killer.’

  ‘Then Petronius Longus must sit it out until the next new moon, or there’s a “rho” in the month, or the red tunic comes home from the laundry – whatever weird trigger tells this killer it’s time for him to shed more gore.’

  ‘Normally,’ Fusculus agreed, ‘the boss would be happy to lie low. Especially in summer when he likes to get home early to your revered sister and have a nap on their nice sun terrace.’

  I was amused. Petro had his eccentric side; he never liked anybody knowing his habits and he had not even told his men that he was living with Maia. They all knew of course. ‘What’s different?’ I asked.

  ‘Sealed lips. State secret.’

  ‘Very grown-up! And are you going to share it?’

  ‘Absolutely bloody not, Falco. This is so utterly sub rosa, one word to you and I’d be spit-roasted with a bunch of oregano pushed up my bum.’

  Tired of boys’ talk, Albia interrupted. ‘I suppose, Tiberius Fusculus, that means Uncle Lucius has not told you his thinking on this?’

  He gazed at her almost as speculatively as Silanus had before he asked if she was married. ‘Bright girlie. No, Uncle Lucius – tight bastard – has not revealed his mighty thoughts.’

  I grinned. ‘I’ll have to ask him myself then.’

  ‘You do that, Falco.’ Fusculus reapplied himself to searching tombs. I clucked up the donkey. As the cart jerked and moved off, Fusculus called after us without rancour, ‘The big clue is – we found luggage!’

  Interesting.

  It was so interesting I was dying to ask Petronius about it. First, I returned the cart to the hire stables, took Albia home, and gave a good show of being safely back with my family. After about half an hour I nipped out to see Petro. Helena spotted me going. I winked and promised to share any gossip as soon as I came back. She sighed, but did not intervene.

  Petronius, amazingly, was trying on his toga. This rare sight made me chortle – until I found out why. It was dusk, so the sweltering streets had cooled a fraction; not enough for loading pounds of heavy white wool on your shoulders, though. No option, it seemed: Petro had to stand in for his tribune, Rubella. The Fourth Cohort’s senior officer had been summoned to a high-status conference on the Palatine.

  Petronius would normally have been taken along too, in order to whisper corrections whenever Rubella got information wrong – mishandling facts was any lazy tribune’s prerogative. As it was July, Rubella was away. Since he had not bothered to inform the Prefect of Vigiles he had snatched a vacation, if Petro wanted, he could land Rubella in mule dung. However, he would be a fool to do so.

  ‘Falco, you know what I think of Rubella –’

  I assured him I thought the same. Marcus Rubella was an over-promoted, super-ambitious, unreliable, self-seeking squit. However, I thought he was the best the cohort would get. ‘Fill me in, Petro.’

  ‘On Rubella?’

  ‘On the case, idiot.’

  ‘We found a hidden pack that must have belonged to that murder victim. Maybe he noticed he was being followed, so he tucked away his stuff just before he was grabbed.’

  ‘What’s the palace connection?’

  ‘He was carrying a draft petition to the Emperor.’

  ‘About?’

  Petronius winced. ‘Ghastly moans. Complaining about local crime. This public disgrace has been allowed to fester far too long; the authorities in our region simply will not address the issue … The Emperor should take the initiative and refuse to tolerate nuisances caused by criminals who boast they have special protection … Nobody will ever listen, of course. Still, I shoved it onwards to the top – gave the poor bastard his last chance of an audience. Least I could do, I thought.’

  ‘You know who he is?’

  ‘I said it’s a draft, you noodle! Nobody signs their name on a private rough.’

  ‘Silly me! So it was no help?’

  ‘I’d have kept it, if it had been useful. Obviously I had to mention to the scroll-beetles that the writer was discovered ripped open from crotch to gullet, with his hands removed.’

  The details were new. I pulled a face. ‘Pluto! That would have made your report attract notice.’

  ‘Seems so. What came over me? Now some schnoozle wants a brief.’

  ‘Minding his back,’ I said. ‘You’ll handle it. You know your stuff. And you’ve been there before.’ Petronius had attended at the Palace with me. We once had a policy discussion with the Emperor and a full phalanx of flunkies. Vespasian took our measure. Even so, we ticed a money-making commission out of him that time. ‘Who sent the summons?’

  ‘Some grunt called Laeta.’

  I pulled up short. ‘Claudius Laeta? I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Keep out of it. I don’t need a nursemaid, Falco.’

  ‘Laeta is trouble. Appearing amenable is his speciality. Then he’ll extract your balls and twist them up in an old knitted sock, swing it round his head and knock you down with your own magic machinery.’

  ‘For a spare-time poet, your imagery stinks,’ opined my old friend dourly. But he must have been nervous about the meeting, because he let me tag along.

  Unlike him, I did not go togate. Laeta was head of the main secretariat. The man had sent me on so many dubious missions, he would receive no respect from me. The only good thing about Laeta was his constantly trying to double-cross Anacrites, the Chief Spy. I watched from the sidelines and tried to play them off against each other.

  Petronius and I ambled gently from the patrol house. I was enjoying my return. I threw back my head and breathed in the last heat of a warm city day. I heard the low buzz of voices from families and groups of friends, eating, chatting, gathering to enjoy those quiet hours of the day before they resumed their usual habits of fornicating with each other’s wives and cheating each other at business or dice. Strings of shrieking garland-girls were going home; nobody would buy dinner flowers now. Sounds of flutes and a drummer vied with the clatter of crockery from an alley, obviously the back door to several bars. Wafts of frying food, swum in oil and enlivened with thyme and rosemary, floated just above street level.

  I had missed Rome. Petronius pointed out with a grin that I had only been away three days, during which I should have been happy, since at Pa’s villa I had all those expensive new possessions to count. Always generous, Petro bore no grudge for my good fortune. Like me, perhaps he did not yet take it seriously.

  On descending the Aventine, to cross to the Palatine we had a choice of passing around the Circus Maximus at the starting-gate end or hoofing down past the apse. The racetrack was absolutely in our way. Even if Petro could have used influence to get inside and cut straight across, there was no point because then we would have had the Palatine’s vertical face ahead of us. Since we both grew up on the Aventine, we were used to this inconvenience. Sometimes we detoured one way, sometimes the other. Either by-pass was long and frustrating. As it was his meeting tonight, I let him choose; he opted for the starting-gates, then wending gently through the Forum Boarium. It stank of raw blood and butchery but gave us a clear run at the Palatine via regular approaches. Petronius was not in a mood to slide through a back door and get lost in the pernicious maze of corridors.

  He presented himself to the Praetorian Guard, managing not to be rude to those braggarts. If I stood on my rights with the Guards when they threatened to push us around, Petronius would shrug and dump me. I followed my friend’s lead meekly.

  Neither of us had any idea at that moment, but we were beginning an adventure that would be as difficult and dangerous as any we had ever attempted. And its connection with the Palatine overlords would be much more than simple bureaucracy.

  XII

  The tall vaulted corridors of the old Palace had their usual evening hush. This was the time I liked to come here. The crowds of jabbering petitioners had given up and gone home, leaving residual odours of garlic sausage and sweat. People were about, but the daytime tension relaxed. The night shift was efficient, but unexcitable. They put anything important or awkward on hold for the day shift.

  Slaves padded past us, setting out oil lamps. Under our frugal Emperor, there was never quite enough light. The slaves had mastered the art of implying they had too much work to break off and tell us whether the office we were looking for was down the right-or left-hand corridor, let alone to admit whether the imperial family was in residence or had all gone away to some summer villa …

  Systems here had stayed the same since Tiberius organised this part of the Palatine. The imperial livery had changed and there was less open fornication; little else altered. Emperors came and went while bureaucracy continued, as rampant as mould. Vespasian and Titus lived in Nero’s repulsively opulent Golden House on the other side of the Forum, while élite secretariats kept their old offices in this historic complex. The bigger the name, the grander the office. Laeta had a suite. Its doorknobs were gilded and a quiet slave constantly mopped the marble floor outside. She was probably there to eavesdrop on pre-admission visitors.