"Did Quadratus try to haggle about what you could take with you?

"He wanted to. I wanted him to try it—"

"That would be theft. It would have destroyed his public face."

"Yes, Falco. He was too clever for that."

"He is intelligent?"

"Of course."

They always are, those golden boys who spend their lives destroying other people.

 

We strolled to the nursery where I inspected the tiny sprouts, each standing in a hollow to conserve moisture and with a windbreak made from an esparto sack for protection. Optatus was carrying out this task himself, though of course he had workers on the estate including slaves of his own. While we were there he puddled in his precious nurselings with water from a barrel, stroking their leaves and tutting over any that looked limp. Seeing him fuss, I gained some sense of his grief at losing the farm where he grew up. It did not improve my opinion of the Quinctius family.

I could tell he wanted to be rid of me. He had been polite, but I had had my ration. He walked me back to the house formally, as if ensuring I was off the scene.

We stopped on the way to look into some outbuildings, including one where olives that were stored for domestic consumption were kept in amphorae, packed in various preparations to preserve them through winter. While we were engrossed, disaster struck. We arrived at the small garden area in front of the main building, just as Helena was trying to catch Nux. The dog rushed towards us ecstatically, with what appeared to be a twig in her mouth.

Optatus and I both immediately knew what it really was. I cursed. Optatus let out a wild cry. He seized a broom and began trying to smash it down on the dog. Helena squealed and stepped back. Loosing off a smothered protest, I managed to grab the culprit, picking up Nux by the scruff of her neck. We jumped out of reach of Optatus. With a hard tap on the nose I prised the trophy from Nux, who compounded her crime by scrabbling free again and leaping about yapping and pleading with me to throw the thing for her. No chance!

Optatus was white. His thin frame went rigid. He could hardly speak for anger—but he forced the words out: "Falco! Your dog has torn up the cuttings in my nursery bed!"

Just my luck.

 

Helena captured Nux and carried her off to be scolded, well out of sight. I strode back to the churned-up plant nursery, with Optatus stalking at my heels. Nux had torn up only one tree, in fact, and knocked a few others over. "I'm sorry; the dog likes chasing things, big things mainly. At home she's been known to frighten vintners delivering wine amphorae. She has simply never been trained to be loose on a farm..."

Scuffing earth flat quickly with the side of my boot, I found the damage much less than it could have been. Nux had been digging, but most of the holes had missed the little trees. Without asking, I found where the rescued cutting belonged and replaced it myself. Optatus stood by in fury. Part of me expected him to snatch the twiglet from me; part knew he was shrinking from it as if the dog had contaminated his treasure.

I picked off the damaged leaves, checked the stem for bruising, redug the planting hole, found the support stake, and firmed in the little tree in the way my grandfather and great-uncle had taught me when I was a small boy. If Optatus was surprised that a street-pounding Roman knew how to do this, he showed nothing. His silence was as bleak as his expression. Still ignoring him, I walked quietly to the water barrel and fetched the jug I had seen him use earlier. Carefully I soaked the plant back into its old position.

"It's gone limp, but I think it's just sulking." I arranged its sackcloth windbreak then I stood up and looked straight at him. "I apologize for the accident. Let's look on the bright side. Last night we were strangers. Now everything's changed. You can think me an inconsiderate, wantonly destructive townee. I can call you an oversensitive, agitated foreigner who is, moreover, cruel to dogs." His chin came up, but I wasn't having it. "So now we can stop sidestepping: I'll tell you the unpleasant political nature of the work I'm really sent here to do. And you," I said clearly, "can give me a true assessment of what's wrong in the local commu-nity.

He started to tell me which plot in Hades I could go and sink my roots in. "Perhaps first of all," I continued pleasantly, "I should warn you that I came to Corduba to investigate two matters: one involves a scandal in the oil market—and the other is murder."

TWENTY-ONE

 

I had managed to strike Optatus dumb, which was no mean feat. When normally silent types do decide they are bursting with indignant exclamations, they tend to be unstoppable. But on a quiet sunlit slope among the timeless dignity of olive trees, murder sounds a powerful word.

"Falco, what are you talking about?"

"One man dead, possibly two of them, in Rome. And it looks as if somebody from Baetica arranged it." That night I had dinner at the Palace seemed a long way off, yet the thought of Anacrites lying pallid and still and almost a stranger to himself came clearly to mind. Even more vivid was Valentinus' corpse: that young man so like myself, lying in the dim light of the Second Cohort's engine house.

Marius Optatus looked disgusted. "I know nothing of this."

"No? Then do you know two big landowners called Licinius Rufius and Annaeus Maximus? When I was introduced to them they set themselves up as honest men of high renown—but they were in doubtful company that night, and after the attacks they behaved very oddly themselves. Then what about a scapharius called Cyzacus? Well, when was a bargee to be trusted? A navicularius called Norbanus? He's a Gaul, I believe, and a shipping negotiator into the bargain, so you don't have to pretend to like him. When I met them all these fellows were dining with someone you certainly do know—a certain Roman senator called Quinctius Attractus! In Rome he's regarded as a big bean in Baetica, though in Baetica you may prefer your legumes homegrown. He's regarded by me as a very suspicious character."

"Attractus has for some time been inviting groups of people to visit him in Rome," Optatus agreed, blinking with amazement at my angry speech.

"Do you think he's up to no good?"

"After my experience of him as a landlord, I'm bound to think that—but I'm prejudiced, Falco."

"I'll ask you something different then. You're a bachelor, I gather; I don't suppose you have any lithe girlfriends in Hispalis who might just have returned abruptly from a trip to Rome?"

Optatus looked po-faced. "I know nobody from Hispalis."

"You'd know this one again if you saw her; she's a dancer—just bursting with talent of one kind or another."

"There must be thousands of girls who dance, but most of them have gone to Rome—"

"With their fee paid by Attractus? And a habit of leaving their props behind at the scenes of bloody crimes?"

I had been going too fast for a countryman. "Who are you?" Optatus demanded in apparent bewilderment. "What are these people from Baetica to you? What harm are you bringing them?"

"The harm has been done," I retorted. "I saw the corpse, and the dying man too. Now I'm looking for the killers, at the request of Titus Caesar—so if you're honest, Marius Optatus, you will help me with my task."

The tall, pale figure beside me began to recover his equanimity. Crouching down on one knee he firmed in the disturbed cutting to his own satisfaction. There was nothing wrong with the way I had replanted it, but I stood unmoved while he left his own scent on the damned thing.

He stood up. He had become more serious than ever. Brushing soil from his long hands he stared at me. Enduring the fascinated gaze was routine work for an informer and I remained relaxed. I could stand hostile scrutiny. "So what do you see?"