A Body in the Bathhouse (36 page)

“You’re brutal.”

“I’m angry, Marcus! I hate corrupt men—and I hate women who let them get away with it.”

“Settle down. The widow may in fact be shocked and apologetic when she learns her husband was a crook.”

“Never. She’ll never see it.”

“She may turn everything over to the grateful Treasury.”

“She won’t.” Helena had no doubt. “That wife will cling to this villa ferociously. She will give Marcellinus an elaborate funeral. Neighbors will flock to celebrate his life. There will be an overscale monument with fulsome carved tributes. This pilfering grandee’s memory will be cherished for decades. And the worst of it is—she will speak of you and Magnus as mundane interferers. Men of lesser vision, men who
did not understand
.”

“My lady is upset,” I told the surveyor. I sounded proud of her, I’m proud to say. “I’ll take her home.”

“She’s bloody right!” proclaimed Magnus.

“Oh, I know that.”

XLVII

T
HERE WAS
no sign of Verovolcus and his men, and I had no great hopes of results from their search. I found our horse and set off back to Noviomagus with Helena myself. We were already tired. Anger made it worse. We traveled the long road almost in silence, yet being together apart from others was refreshment for us both.

At one point, Helena began dozing against my back, so for safety I stopped and took charge of Favonia. Swapping a baby between two drowsy parents on horseback, when the baby is wide awake and wants to throw its weight about, takes time and courage.

“Maybe we should swaddle her, after all,” I muttered. Helena had vetoed this for both our children. She believed in exposing the girls to exercise and danger; she called it training so they could one day deal with men. On the other hand, she said if we had boys, she would keep them in straitjackets until they left home for marriage.

“Swaddling
you
wouldn’t keep you out of mischief,” she told me. “Have you got her?”

I had somehow tied Helena’s stole around the baby and knotted it to hang around my neck.

“She’s got me.” My offspring was now gripping the front neck of my tunic hard. Half throttled, I rode on.

When we reached Noviomagus, I’d decided we would follow the King’s example from yesterday: we would rest here and stay overnight at Helena’s uncle’s house. Another mile to the palace might not seem too much, but it was a mile along a road frequented by men from the site. I was exhausted and ill placed to tackle trouble. Besides, I was in no mood to restrain myself with any fool who tried to take me on.

Helena wanted to see her brother Justinus too. Rather to my surprise, he was actually at home; I thought hard living must have paled. But I was wrong; his hard-living cronies had merely come to him. Once it was clear that Helena and I were not in transit but staying, Aelianus and Larius both sneakily emerged.

“It’s been a long day, with some bloody episodes,” I warned them. I was past even berating them for breaking the rules and leaving base. I could not face a noisy group discussion about recent developments. I had thought things through on the long ride here, but still had some pondering left to do—the kind I could accomplish best when fast asleep.

All three young men volunteered with great courtesy to go out for the evening. They might be home-loving types, but felt they could amuse themselves at some respectable venue so Helena and I might have some peace. The trio promised to return to the house with extreme care and quietness.

“And don’t be late,” ordered Helena. They solemnly nodded their heads. “Who is looking after Maia Favonia?” she then enquired. The lads assured her Maia Favonia was well able to look after herself.

We had to hope it was true.

XLVIII

N
O, WE
didn’t.

I caught the lads as they were skipping out the door. With Perella still on the loose, Maia needed guards. “Aelianus and Larius, you are to go back to the palace now. Make sure my sister is all right.”

“Maia is perfectly safe—” Aelianus began stroppily. After his sojourn in the woods, he wanted a treat.

He might be right. Perella’s sole target might have been Marcellinus. But he could be wrong.

“If anything happens to Maia while you have bunked off partying, I shall kill you, Aulus. That’s as in disembowel you with a meat cleaver.” He was still looking rebellious, so I said curtly, “Marcellinus had his throat slit by that dancer we thought was tailing Maia.”

He did reconsider. “And now the woman is on the loose again?”

“Stupenda?” Justinus joined in, with a quick glance at his crony Larius. “She won’t have energy for Maia. She will be resting. She has a long night ahead of her tomorrow.”

Larius explained: “Tomorrow night is billed as Stupenda’s farewell appearance.” As I stared at him, he added lamely, “Virginia tipped us off.”

Tomorrow was nearly here. “You’re done in, Falco,” Justinus said quietly. “Aulus and Larius will certainly go back now and guard Maia. I’ll try to find out from the management at the bar if they know where the dancer stays. If they don’t know, we can all join the audience for her final show.”

“What, and arrest her in front of a baying crowd?” I knew nothing works out that easily. But I was so tired, I was powerless. “She won’t appear.”

“She had better,” Justinus replied grimly. “The men are all keyed up for it. If she fails to arrive, there will be a riot.”

I grinned wanly and said, “Well, none of us would want to miss that.”

XLIX

I
SLEPT BADLY
. My tooth hurt. And when you most need rest, it refuses to come.

I felt events were either running towards a climax or, more likely, shooting out of my control. The palace project was well in hand. I had identified enough of what had been going wrong for officials to screw things back in line. It could be done painlessly. With both Pomponius and Marcellinus dead, the two architects could jointly be blamed in reports for inefficiency and the theft of site materials. Magnus’ part in trying to trace losses would support my recommendation that he be given greater authority. A new title might help, say prefect of the works. Cyprianus would act as deputy. Strephon could be given a chance to lead the designers; he might develop well. If Magnus was correct that the clerk, Gaius, was honest, he could be made the senior; the others could be smartened up or replaced, so cost control and programming would then be pulled back on target. That was fine.

I still wanted to identify for sure who killed the two dead architects and why. Other deaths on-site were either natural events or safety issues; firm management would help stop unnecessary accidents.

I still wanted to safeguard my sister in a way that would deter Anacrites permanently.

I still wanted to find Gloccus and Cotta.

Shocking death stays with you. Bloody sights affect your dreams. When I did drift off to sleep, nightmares that sprang from the killings here, oddly combined with low moments from my own past, leaped from my tired imagination. Waylaid by terror, I woke, needing to sit up and detach myself. Helena, unused to riding long distances, slumbered deeply at my side. I had to stay awake, knowing the nightmares would stalk me if I relaxed again. By the morning, I felt grim.

Justinus appeared as fresh as a bird during my late breakfast. He was even sober enough to notice my silence.

“I’ve been out on reconnaissance. Everyone thought ‘Stupenda’ was lodging in a dive near the palace, Falco. Not so, apparently. I searched, but she was not there.”

“How do they contact her about bookings?”

“She comes to see them.”

“So are they confident that she is still on for tonight?”

“Apparently.”

I ate my bread gloomily. Helena, who was feeding the baby while seated on a leather box-backed couch, looked over. “What’s wrong, Marcus?”

“Something’s not right. Perella does not act this way. If she was sent by Anacrites specifically to eliminate Marcellinus—who knows why?—then her normal behavior pattern would be: stake out the ground, move in for the kill, then vanish.”

“Well, she has disappeared,” said Justinus, though Helena stayed silent.

“I meant, vanish from the whole area. Probably from the province.”

Justinus pushed back his dark floppy hair. “You suspect that Perella has not yet carried out her full mission?”

“That’s one theory,” I replied cautiously. “One I don’t want to think about. Let’s stick with the hope that promising she will dance for the boys tonight is just a ruse to give her time and space to make a getaway.”

“She must be stuck. People can only leave this province by sea,” Justinus pointed out. “You’re at the mercy of the tides and sailing ships for a fast exit.”

I managed a grin. “Sounds as if you’ve thought about this.”

“Every minute since we arrived, Falco!”

I drained a cup of lukewarm flavored wine, checking with Helena that she was ready to leave for the palace. “I’ll spend a day at the site, Quintus. You can come if you like, if you’ve nothing on here. There’s not much to lose now if people realize you’re on my team.”

“I would like to see the palace, after traveling all this way.”

“We can take it easy, then return to Novio this evening when the floor show is due to begin.”

“Wonderful.”

I grinned at Helena. “Your brother, who has graceful manners, manages to pretend he’ll be happy chaperoned by a chaste older man.”

“Oh, who’s that, then?” asked Helena dryly. “I thought he was going with you, Falco.”

Justinus, who knew how to look innocent, roused himself as if to go and fetch his traveling gear. Then he paused. “Is this the moment to mention someone you’re looking for?”

“Not Gloccus and Cotta?”

“No. You told me about that supervisor, the hard man I was not to approach alone.”

“Mandumerus? The gang leader Pomponius wanted to dangle from a man-made tree?”

Justinus nodded. “I think I saw him. I’m sure it must be him. He fitted your description—he was among the Britons from the site, heavily patterned with woad and a real ugly brute.”

“When was this, Quintus?” Helena put in.

“The same night Marcus came over and mentioned him.” That would be the night Pomponius was killed.

“Why not tell me earlier?”

“I haven’t seen you since. I went out for a drink after you had left.” Justinus managed to sound casual. And he was conveniently forgetting that he saw me last night. My assistants were growing casual. This could all go wrong.

“A drink?” asked his sister. “Or mooning at that bar girl?”

“Oh, she just reminds me of my own dear Claudia,” he lied.

Then he described what had happened. As he sat sipping what he alleged was a modest beaker of diluted beverage, a man who resembled my description of Mandumerus had entered the bar.

“Is this your favorite joint? Where Virginia gives the men the eye, and more, while Stupenda issues promises of what life is like among the gods? What’s it called—the Maggot’s Arse?”

“The River Trout,” said Justinus primly.

“Very nice. I do love fish.”

“Do you want to know about the Mandumerus look-alike or not?”

“Absolutely. What are you waiting for?”

“He seemed to have just come from out of town—I can’t say why exactly I thought that. Something about the way he plumped himself down as if he was either exhausted or really fired up.”

“What—‘Give me a drink, I’m desperate,’ you mean?”

“More or less his words, Marcus. The other men huddled round him. I won’t say they lowered their voices, because they didn’t say much; they just exchanged rather significant glances.”

“Were they keeping things from you as a stranger?”

“General caution, I would say.”

“And is this the bar where the Britons drink?”

“Yes. It’s none too pleasant.”

“But you and Larius fit in!” I sneered. “So had you seen this man before?”

“I think so. What caught my attention this time,” Justinus said, “was one quick gesture he made to his cronies as he sat down.”

“Go on?”

“He put one hand around his throat and imitated somebody choking—eyes bulging and tongue out.” Justinus copied it: the universal mime for being throttled or suffocated.

Or strangled, as Pomponius had been that night.

L

B
ACK AT
the palace later, I detected an uneasy atmosphere. Verovolcus and his men must have returned last night, having found no sign of Perella. Word snaked around the site huts, naturally, that Marcellinus had been slaughtered in his bed. No doubt those who had benefitted personally from his constant home refurbishment were looking now to other scams to enhance their income. That would take up some of their time. The rest was given over to shinning up the scaffold on the old house, whence they leaned over showing their underwear, or in most cases their lack of it, while they whistled at passing women.

They were targeting one in particular: my nursemaid Camilla Hyspale. “Oh, Marcus Didius, those rude men are insulting me!”

“Try minding Julia indoors out of sight, then.”

“Of course, Marcus Didius.” That was strangely obedient. Had Maia taken the girl in hand?

“Beyond my scope,” Maia reported in an undertone. “She’s being nice because she hopes you will let her go out and spend this evening with a friend.”

“What friend?”

“No idea. She keeps running off to flirt with a man. Larius swears it isn’t him.”

“Should I let her go out tonight?” I consulted Helena.

“Of course,” she returned mildly. “So long as the friend is a matron, free from any hint of scandal, who will send her own chair for Hyspale!”

That seemed unlikely.

Julia was too busy to go indoors. Too young to be worried by men on scaffolds, she had her entire toy collection spread in the courtyard; rag doll, wooden doll with one leg missing, fashionably dressed ivory doll, push-along cart, clay animals, dolls’ dinner set, rattle, beanbag for throwing games, balls in three sizes, nodding antelope, and—dear gods—some swine with no care for her parents’ eardrums must have given her a flute. I won’t say my daughter was spoiled, but she was fortunate. Four grandparents doted on their dark-eyed toddler. Aunts vied with one another for her love. If a new toy was created in any corner of the Empire, Julia somehow acquired it. You wonder why we had brought every one on a thousand-mile journey? Sheer terror of her reaction if she discovered we had left any treasure behind.