Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (167 page)

‘Yes?’

‘May his shade forgive me if I tell you that there was more than met the eye when it came to Lucius’s finances.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Lucius had all sorts of improvements in mind for this villa. Expensive renovations and additions. That was why he asked me to the house for a few days, to discuss the feasibility and expense of some projects he had in mind.’

‘But why would he spend so much to improve a house in which he was only a tenant?’

‘Because he was planning to buy the house from Crassus, very soon.’

‘Did Crassus know this?’

‘I think not. Lucius told me he would be approaching Crassus with an offer within a month or so, and he seemed quite confident that Crassus would accept. Do you have any idea what a villa like this costs, especially when you consider the expenses of running the place?’ Orata lowered his voice. ‘He told me, very confidentially, that his chance to break away from Crassus had come at last. He suggested that he and I should launch a partnership; my business expertise matched with his capital, he said. He came up with some good ideas, I must admit.’

‘But you were wary.’

‘The word “partnership” always makes me wary. I learned early on always to make my own way.’

‘But if Lucius was offering the money—’

‘That’s just it: where did he get it? When I rebuilt the baths here, it was Crassus who signed the final contract, and Crassus always saw that I received my payments on time. But occasionally there were incidental expenses, little things about which Lucius hated to bother Crassus, so Lucius would pay for them himself. He always acted as if it were a great sacrifice just to come up with a few sesterces to buy a wagonload of lime.’ Orata wrinkled his plump brow. ‘I told you earlier that Lucius always served sumptuous dinners, but that was only in the last year or two. Before that, he always pretended to be better off than he was. You could see the brass beneath the gold, so to speak – the oysters might be fresh, but you could see that the slaves kept washing the same silver spoons to serve each new course because there weren’t enough silver spoons to go around.’

‘A subtle point, surely.’

‘In my line of work one learns to observe the fine distinctions between true wealth and pretence. I hate being left with a bill I can’t collect.’

‘And in the last year or so Lucius had managed to buy all the silver spoons he needed?’

‘Exactly. And he seemed to be in the market for more.’

‘I suppose he must have been saving his stipend from Crassus for a long time.’

Orata shook his head glumly.

‘Then what? Did he have some other source of income?’

‘None that I know of. And there is very little that transpires on the Cup that I don’t know about – very little of a legitimate, legal nature, that is.’

‘Do you mean—’

‘I only mean that Lucius’s sudden wealth was an enigma to me.’

‘And to Crassus?’

‘I don’t think Crassus knew about it.’

‘But what could Lucius have done, without Crassus’s even knowing? Are you suggesting some clandestine—’

‘I suggest nothing,’ Orata blandly insisted. He turned from the view of the bay and looked into the house. The last traces of the dinner had vanished; even the serving tables had been taken away. He sighed and suddenly seemed to lose all interest in our conversation. ‘I think I shall go to my room now.’

‘But, Sergius Orata, surely you have some ideas, some suspicions—’

He shrugged quite extravagantly, a well-practised gesture good for escaping unwanted investors and clients too small to bother with. ‘I only know that one of Marcus Crassus’s reasons for coming here was to have a careful look at Lucius’s financial records, so that Crassus might assess his own resources on the Cup. If he looks long and hard enough, I suspect that Crassus may uncover some very unpleasant surprises.’

On my way to the library I avoided walking through the atrium where the remains of Lucius Licinius were displayed; if a part of my mission now included uncovering some embarrassing transactions or even criminal activity on his part, I did not care to encounter his shade in the middle of the night. I took a lamp to find my way through the unfamiliar halls, but hardly needed it; moonlight poured like liquid silver through the windows and skylights, flooding the halls and open spaces with a cold luminescence.

I hoped to find the library empty, but when I turned the corner I saw the same bodyguard who had attended the door the previous night. At my approach he turned his head with military precision and fixed me with a piercing gaze. His stare softened when he recognized me. The frigid mask of his face loosened; indeed, the closer I came the more chagrined he looked. When I was close enough to hear the voices from within, I understood his embarrassment.

They must have been speaking quite loudly for the sound to pass through the heavy oak door. Crassus’s voice, with its oratorical training, penetrated more clearly; the other voice had a lower, rumbling timbre that was less easy to distinguish, but the bombastic tone unmistakably belonged to Marcus Mummius.

‘For the last time, there will be no exceptions!’ This came from Crassus. A rumbling retort from Mummius followed, too muffled for me to catch more than a few words – ‘how many times . . . always loyal, even when . . . you owe me this favour . . .’

‘No, Marcus, not even as a favour!’ Crassus shouted. ‘Stop dredging up the dead past. This is a matter of policy – there’s nothing personal in it. If I allow even a single sentimental exception, there will be no end to it – Gelina will have me save them all! How do you think that would look in Rome? No, I won’t be made a fool of because you lack the good sense to avoid this kind of petty attachment—’

This evoked angry shouting from Mummius; I was unable to make out the words, but there was no mistaking the note of anguish amid the fury. An instant later the door abruptly opened, so violently that the bodyguard started back and drew his sword.

Mummius emerged, red-faced, his eyes bulging, his jaw set hard enough to grind stones. He turned back towards the room and clenched his fists at his sides, making the veins in his thick forearms writhe like the one that pulsed across his forehead. ‘If you and Lucius had allowed me to buy him for myself, this wouldn’t be happening! You wouldn’t be able to touch the boy! If Jupiter himself tried to harm a hair on his head, I would—’

He made a choking noise and began to shake, unable to go on. For the first time he seemed to notice that someone else was in the hall. He turned to look blankly first at the guard and then at me. His furious expression never changed, but his eyes began to glisten hotly as they filled with tears.

Farther down the hall, toward the atrium, a door opened. Gelina, her hair awry, her makeup smeared, peered toward us with a look of confusion. ‘Lucius?’ she whispered hoarsely. Even from such a distance I could smell the wine from her pores.

Crassus emerged from the library. There was a moment of strained silence. ‘Gelina, go back to your bed,’ Crassus said sternly. She drew her eyebrows together and meekly obeyed. Crassus dilated his nostrils with a deep breath and lifted his chin. For a long moment Mummius returned his stare, then spun around and hurried down the hallway without a word. The young guard silently sheathed his sword, clenched his jaw, and stared straight ahead. I opened my mouth, searching for some way to explain my presence, but Crassus relieved me of the obligation.

‘Don’t stand there gaping in the hall. Come inside!’

With the typical good manners of the nobility, Crassus said nothing at all about the argument I had just witnessed. Except for a slight flush across his forehead and a sigh that escaped his lips as he shut the door behind us, it might never have happened. As on the night before, he wore a Greek chlamys rather than a cloak to ward off the chill; apparently the altercation had warmed him enough, for he stripped off the garment and tossed it onto the centaur statue. ‘Wine?’ he offered, taking a cup from the shelf. I noticed there were two cups already on the table, one for himself and another for Mummius; both were empty.

‘Are we not fasting?’

Crassus raised an eyebrow. ‘I have it on good authority that one need not abstain from wine while fasting for the dead. The custom can be bent either way, I am told, and in my experience it is always best to bend custom to present need.’

‘On good authority, you say?’ I accepted the chair that Crassus offered while he turned his around and leaned against the table, which was littered with documents.

Crassus smiled and sipped his wine. He shut his eyes and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. He suddenly looked very weary. ‘Good authority, indeed. Dionysius tells me that wine is the metaphysical equivalent of blood, and so should not be denied to a fasting man, any more than the air he breathes.’

‘I suspect that Dionysius is ready to tell you anything he thinks you might want to hear.’

Crassus nodded. ‘Exactly. A hopeless sycophant – and sycophants are not what I need at the moment. What was all that nonsense this evening, about his being your rival? Have you offended him?’

‘I’ve hardly spoken to him.’

‘Ah, then he’s concocted this scheme to solve Lucius’s murder on his own, thinking he can use it to impress me. You see what’s happening, don’t you? With Lucius gone and the household about to dissolve . . . one way or another . . . he’ll be needing a new patron and a new residence.’

‘And he would like to attach himself to you?’

Crassus laughed mirthlessly and drank more wine. ‘I suppose I should be flattered. Clearly he thinks I’m on my way up. Spartacus has only humiliated two Roman consuls and defeated every army that’s been sent to destroy him; what do I have to worry about?’

This note of self-doubt was so unexpected that for a moment I missed it entirely. ‘Is it so certain then that you’ll be given the command against Spartacus?’

‘Who else would take it? Every politician in Rome with military experience is quaking with fear. They want Spartacus to be someone else’s problem.’

‘What about—’

‘Don’t even say his name! If I never heard it again, I could die happily.’ Crassus slumped against the table. His expression softened. ‘Actually, I don’t hate Pompey. We were good comrades, under Sulla. No one can say that his glory is unearned. The man is brilliant – a great tactician, a splendid leader, a superb politician. Handsome as a demigod, too. He really does look like a bust of Alexander, or used to. And rich! People say that I’m rich, but they forget that Pompey’s as wealthy as I am, if not wealthier. Pompey, they say, is brilliant, Pompey is handsome, but rich is something they say only about me – “Crassus, Crassus, rich as Croesus.”’ He reached for the wine and poured himself another cup. He offered more to me, but I showed him that my cup was still half full. ‘Besides, Pompey has his hands full in Spain, mopping up that rebel Sertorius. He can’t possibly get back in time to put an end to Spartacus. Actually, he could, but he won’t, because I’ll have done the job already. What do you know about Spartacus, anyway?’

‘No more than the merchants down at the Subura markets know, when they tell me their prices have tripled because of someone called Spartacus.’

‘It all comes down to that, doesn’t it? They can burn a whole town in the countryside and hang the city fathers by their ankles, but the real rub comes when Spartacus and his nasty little revolt start making life uneasy for the rabble in Rome. The situation is so absurd that no one could have invented it; it’s like a nightmare that won’t go away. Do you know where it started?’

‘Capua, wasn’t it?’

Crassus nodded. ‘Just a short ride from here, up the Via Consularis from Puteoli. A fool named Batiatus ran a gladiator farm on the edge of town; bought his slaves wholesale, weeded out the weak, trained the strong ones and sold them to clients all over Italy. He came into a number of Thracians – good fighters, but notoriously temperamental. Batiatus decided to put them in their place from the very start, so he kept them in cages like beasts and fed them nothing but thin gruel and water, letting them out only for their exercises and training. The idiot! Why is it that men who would never think of beating a horse or salting a patch of good earth can be so reckless with their human property? Especially a piece of property that knows how to carry a weapon and kill. A slave is a tool – use it wisely and you profit, use it foolishly and your efforts are wasted.

‘But I was talking about Spartacus. In the normal course of things these Thracians would have been broken to Batiatus’s will, one way or another, or they might have revolted against him and been killed on the spot, putting a sorry end to a sorry episode. But among their number was a man called Spartacus. It happens sometimes that even among slaves you’ll find a man of forceful character, a brute with a way of making other brutes gather around him to do his will. There’s nothing mystical about it – I suppose Dionysius has babbled on to you about his history of the supposed magician Eunus and the slave revolt in Sicily sixty years ago, a thoroughly disgusting episode; at least it was contained on an island. They’re already saying the same sort of rubbish about Spartacus, that before he was sold into slavery he was seen sleeping with snakes coiled around his head, and the slave he calls his wife is some sort of prophetess who goes into convulsions and speaks for the god Bacchus.’

‘So they say down in the Subura markets,’ I admitted.