A Body in the Bathhouse (11 page)

I suppose it pleased
me
to think that Alexas would regard it as a matter of professional competence to report any irregularity. I would find no clues otherwise. I would have to rely on Alexas for information on the past “accidents.”

But the situation was covered now: I was here. That should reassure anyone who had the misfortune to be done in in murky circumstances!

When I left the medical post, somebody was hanging about outside in a way that made me look twice at him. I felt he was intending to quiz Alexas about me. When I stared straight at him, he changed his mind. “You’re Falco?”

“Can I help you?”

“Lupus.”

Broad-browed and squat-bodied, with a tan that said he had lived out of doors in all weathers for maybe forty years, he seemed familiar. “And your position is?”

“Labor supervisor.”

“Right!” He had been at the project meeting; Cyprianus pointed him out to me. “Local or foreign workers?”

Lupus looked surprised that I knew there were two. I just waited. He muttered, “I do the overseas.”

There were benches outside the bandage house for queuing patients. I sat down and encouraged Lupus to do likewise. “And where are you from yourself?”

“Arsinöe.” It sounded like a hole at the back of a gully in the desert.

“Where’s that?”

“Egypt!” he said proudly. Reading my mind, the loyal sand flea added, “Yes, yes; it’s the place they call Crocodilopolis.”

I took out my note-tablet and a stylus. “I need to talk to you. Was Valla one of your men? Gaudius? Or the man who died in the knife fight at the canabae?”

“Valla, Dubnus, and Eporix were mine.”

“Eporix?”

“A roof feature fell on him.” The heavy finial Alexas showed me.

“And tell me about the knife victim? That was Dubnus, wasn’t it?”

“Big Gaul. A complete ass. How he managed not to get himself slaughtered twenty years before this, I’ll never know.”

Lupus spoke matter-of-factly. I could accept that half his workforce were madhats. Almost certainly they came from poor backgrounds. They led a grueling life with few rewards. “Give me the picture.” I left off the stylus to look informal.

“What do you want?”

“Background. How things work. What are the good and bad aspects?

Where does your labor hail from? Are they happy? How do you feel yourself?”

“They come from Italy mostly. Along the way a few Gauls are recruited. Spaniards. Eporix was one of my Hispanians. The fine trades get workers from the east or central Europe; they pick up on the orders for materials in the marble yards or wherever, and follow the carts looking for high wages or adventure.”

“Are the wages good?”

Lupus guffawed. “This is an imperial project, Falco. The men just
think
they will get special rates.”

“Do you have trouble attracting labor?”

“It’s a prestigious contract.”

“One that will embarrass people in high places if it goes wrong!” I grinned. After a moment, Lupus grinned back. Dry lips parted slowly and reluctantly; he was a cautious partaker of mirth. Or just cautious. He was at least talking to me, but I did not fool myself. I could not expect his trust.

“Yes, it’s rather public.” Lupus grimaced. “Otherwise, it may be bloody big, but it’s just domestic, isn’t it?”

“Major engineering is more complex?”

“The governor’s palace in Londinium has more clout. I wouldn’t say no to a transfer there.”

“Any snobbery because the client is a Briton?”

“I don’t care who he is. And I don’t let the men complain.”

Most of his front teeth were missing. I wondered how many barroom fights accounted for his losses. He was of burly build. He looked capable of handling himself, and of splitting up any troublemakers.

“So you have a whole crowd of migrant workers—scores, or hundreds even?” I asked, recalling him to the subject. Lupus nodded, confirming the larger number. “What sort of life is there for the men? They get basic accommodations?”

“Temporary hutments close to the site.”

“No privacy, no room to breathe.”

“Worse than house-slaves at some luxury villas—but better than slaves in the mines.” Lupus shrugged.

“Yours is free labor?”

“Mixture. But I hate slaves,” he said. “A big site’s too open. Too many transports leaving. I don’t have time to stop the merry hordes running off.”

“So your men get adequate rations, washing facilities, and a roof.”

“If the weather holds, our fellows are out of doors all day. We want them fit and full of energy.”

“Like the army.”

“The same, Falco.”

“So how is discipline?”

“Not too bad.”

“But the high value of materials on-site leads to diddling?”

“We keep the risky stuff locked away in decent stores.”

“I’ve seen the depot with the new fence.”

“Yes, well. You wouldn’t think there was anywhere around here to sell the stuff, or any means of moving it away—but some bugger will always manage. I arrange the best watchmen I can, and we’ve brought in dogs to help them. Then we just hope.”

“Hmm.” That was an area I had to pursue later. “And how is life out here? The men have leisure time?”

He groaned. “They do.”

“Tell me.”

“That’s where my troubles really start. They are bored. They are thinking they will get large bonuses—and half of them spend the money before we even dole it out. They have access to beer—there’s too much, and some are not used to it. They rape the native women—or so the women’s fathers claim when they come haranguing me—and they beat up the native men.”

“That’s the fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers of their attractive lady friends?”

“For starters. Or on the right night, my lads will take on anyone else who has a long haircut, a strong accent, or funny trousers and a red mustache.” Lupus almost sounded proud of their spirit. “If they can’t find a Briton to abuse, they just beat up each other instead. The Italians gang up on the Gauls. When that palls, for variety the Italians tear into each other and the Gauls do the same. That’s less tricky to deal with in some ways than distraught civilian Britons hoping for a compensation payout, though it leaves me shorthanded. Pomponius gives me all Hades if too many on the complement are laid up with cracked heads. But, Falco”—Lupus stretched towards me earnestly—“this is just life on a building site abroad. It is happening all over the Empire.”

“And you are saying it means nothing?”

“It means I have my work cut out—but that’s what I’m here for. These are simple lads, mostly. When they start a feud, I can find out what’s up by reading the curse tablets they lay lovingly at shrines. ‘May Vertigius the snotty tiler lose his willy for stealing my red tunic, and may his chilblains hurt him very much indeed. Vertigius is a swine and I don’t like him. Also, may the foreman, that cruel and unfair person Lupus, rot and have no luck with girls.’ ”

I laughed quietly. Then I threw in. “
Are
you unfair, Lupus?”

“Oh I look after my favorites scrupulously, Falco.”

I thought not. He seemed like a man who was as much in control of a slippery situation as he could be. He seemed to understand his men, to love their craziness, to tolerate their stupidity. I reckoned he would defend them against outsiders. I thought only the truly mad among them—and a few real lunatics would be on the payroll—would seriously curse Lupus.

“And how are you with girls?” I asked mischievously.

“Mind your own business! Well, I do all right.” Lupus could not resist boasting.

He was an ugly trout. But that meant nothing. Toothless whippers-in can be popular. He held a position of authority and his manner was confident. Some women will sidle up to anyone in charge.

I stretched. “Thanks for all that. Now tell me, have you a couple of recent acquisitions from Rome called Gloccus and Cotta?”

“Um—not that I can think of. Do you want to scan my rolls of honor?”

“You keep lists?”

“Of course. Pay,” he explained sarcastically.

“Yes, I’ll look through them, please.” They could be using false names. Any pair of tradesmen who had turned up just before me would be worth checking out. “Just one more question—you control the immigrant labor, but I gather there are British workers too?”

Perhaps Lupus closed in slightly. “That’s right, Falco.” He stood up and was already leaving. “Mandumerus runs the local team. You’ll have to ask him.”

There was nothing in his tone to imply a feud directly, yet I felt he and Mandumerus were not friends.

“By the way, Falco,” he informed me as we parted. “Pomponius asked me to pass on his apologies; he mistook you for a traveling salesman—we get a lot coming around to bother us.”

“Mistook me, eh?” I sucked my teeth.

“He sent a message—he’s found the scroll explaining you. He wants to give you a presentation about the full scheme. Tomorrow In the plan room.”

“Sounds like that’s all of tomorrow taken care of, then!”

He grinned.

XIII

H
ELENA CAME
with me from Noviomagus for the project presentation. On arrival at the palace, we wandered around the scaffolded part and looked at the roof where poor Valla must have fallen to his death.

It was a straightforward case of sending a man aloft, on his own, too high up, with inadequate protection. Apparently.

We had time in hand. Turning back, we surveyed what they called the old house. Togidubnus’ palace, his reward for allowing the Romans into Britain, must have stood out in the land of hill forts and forest hovels. Even this early version was a gem. His fellow kings and their tribesmen were still living in those large round huts with smoke holes in their pointed roofs, where several families would cram in festively together along with their chickens, ticks, and favorite goats. Togi, though, was fabulously set up. The main range of the royal home compromised a fine and substantial Romanized stone building. It would be a desirable property if it stood on the shores of the lake at Nemi; in this wilderness, it was an absolute cracker.

A double veranda gave protection from the weather, opening onto a large colonnaded garden. It was well tended; someone enjoyed this amenity. Set slightly apart from the living suite for safety, the unmistakable domed roofs of what might well be the only private bathhouse in this province lay on the seaward side. Gentle smoke from the furnace told us Vespasian did not need to send the King a civilization trainer to teach him what the baths were for.

Helena dragged me to explore. I made her take care, for some architectural features were in the process of being stripped by the builders. This included the colonnaded pillars around the garden; they had highly unusual, rather elegant capitals, with extravagant rams’ horn volutes, from between which worrying tribal faces wreathed in oak leaves peered out at us.

“Too wild and woody for me!” Helena cried. “Give me simple bead and dart tops.”

I agreed with her. “The mystical eyes seem to be an outdated fad.” I gestured at the columns being dismantled. “Pomponius starts a client’s refit by tearing down everything in sight.” I noticed that these columns were coated with stucco, which in some places was peeling as the stone beneath flaked. Weathering had forced hideous cracks in their render. “Poor Togi! Let down by tacky Claudian tat. See, this apparently noble Corinthian pillar is just a composite—thrown together on the cheap, with a life span of less than twenty years!”

“You are shocked, Marcus Didius.” Helena’s eyes danced.

“This is no way for the Golden City to reward a valued ally—nasty chunks of old tile and packing material, thrown together and surfaced over.”

“Yet I can see why the King likes it,” said Helena. “It has been a fine home; I expect he’s very fond of it.”

“He’s fonder still of expensive fiddling.”

A window flew open. No tat this; it was a tightly carpentered hardwood effort with opaque panes, set in a beautifully molded marble frame. The marble looked conspicuously Carraran. Not many of my neighbors could afford the genuine white stuff. I felt myself growing envious.

Wild ginger dreadlocks flailed; around a fleshy bull neck I recognized the heavy electrum torque that must be nearly choking its excited owner.

“You are the man!” shrieked the King’s representative in stilted Latin.

“The man from Rome,”
I corrected him firmly. I like to pass on colloquial phrases when I travel among the barbarians. “Gives a better tone of menace.”

“Menace?”

“More frightening.” Helena smiled. The tribesman let himself be charmed by this refined vision in white; she was wearing earrings with rows of golden acorns and he was a connoisseur of jewelry. There were not many women on-site. None would match mine for style, taste, and mischief-making. “His name is Falco.”

“Falco is the man.” We gazed at him. “From Rome,” he added lamely. Education claimed another demoralized victim. “You have to come, man from Rome—and your woman.” Leering, he waved an arm, resplendent in checked wool, towards an entrance. We were amenable to the hospitality of strangers. We agreed to go.

It took us some time to find him indoors. There were quite a few rooms, furnished with imported goods and all ornamented strikingly. Blue-black dados had dashing floral designs, painted with a sure hand and dramatic brushwork; friezes were divided into elegant rectangles, set off either with white borderlines or with flux fluted pilasters; a perspective painter had created mock cornices so well they looked like real moldings bathed in an evening glow. Floors were restrained black and white, or had those cutwork stones in multicolors—a calm geometry of pale wine-juice red, aqua blue, dull white, shades of gray, and corn. In Italy and Gaul, these are considered old-fashioned. If his interior designer was alert to trends, the King would undoubtedly change them.

“I am Verovolcus!” The client’s representative had at least mastered that language lesson where he learned to say his name. “You are Falco.” Yes, we had done that. I introduced Helena Justina by her full name, and with her most excellent father’s details. She managed not to look surprised by this ludicrous formality.