Two For The Lions (8 page)

XIV

"SOMETHING'S HAPPENED AND I can't decide whether to tell you or not," said Anacrites next morning.

"Suit yourself."

Petronius Longus had also loved keeping things to himself: though at least he usually kept quiet until I noticed the signs and forced him to come clean. Why could none of my partners be honest, open types like me?

That day Anacrites and I had both reached the Calliopus barracks at roughly the same time, and at once took up our station pouring over the lanista's scrolls like dutiful taxation screws. I could learn to like this life. Knowing that every discrepancy we identified meant more aureae for rebuilding the state made me, as a patriotic citizen, simper with piety. Knowing that I took my percentage from every gold coin kept a big grin on my face too.

Anacrites opted to remain coy. Secrets were his dirty heritage as a spy. I kept working until it was obvious he chose to play the shy maiden, then I rose from my stool quietly and went out of the office. As soon as our profits topped a reasonable figure, I would chain up my partner, smear him with my mother's damson jelly, and place him on a very hot sun terrace that was known to be undermined by biting ants. Could I endure him until summer, though?

Breathing slowly to control my wrath, I walked to the menagerie. Slaves were mucking out the cages but they seemed to assume I had right of entry. Trying not to impede their work, I elbowed through the tall-necked crowd of inanely curious ostriches, then set about taking a full inventory of the beasts. In one stall a sleepy-eyed bull dribbled gloomily; he was labelled "Aurochs' and named "Ruta", but having once fought a wild aurochs on a riverbank way outside the bounds of civilization, I knew this was just some domesticated cud-chewer. Ruta was big, nonetheless. So was the bear, "Borago", chained by one back leg to a post which he was slyly gnawing his way through. Each of them could be matched against an elephant and it would be a balanced fight.

I helped a man to unload a bale of straw. He spread it around in the bear's stall, keeping well out of am] and snout's reach, then stirred the prong of his fork in a ground-level feeding-trough. It was falling to pieces after what must have been a very violent life. "What happened to the manger?"

"We had a croc once." Apparently that explained it all.

"You sound as if you didn't like him."

"I hated him. We all did. Laurus looked after him, thank the gods. Poor old Laurus disappeared--gone without a trace--and we reckoned he had ended up inside the snapper."

"If the croc got Laurus, who got the croc?"

"Iddibal and the others, in the Augustan Games venatio." I grinned. "Iddibal's the one who knows what to do with his spear?"

"Pardon, Falco?"

"Sorry; that was lewd. Doesn't he have some fancy dame chasing after him?"

"I wouldn't know." It sounded genuine. But then lies always do. The fellow seemed to think about it, with a rather scathing expression, then he added in an oblique tone, "Who knows anything about the mysterious Iddibal?" I let it pass, but noted what he said.

They had braziers lit today, keeping the animals warm; the fug made the smells almost unbearable. I felt unsettled by the stink, the heat, the growls and occasional shuffling noises. I noticed there was an open door that I had never explored at the end of the building. Nobody stopped me, so I mooched along and looked in. I found an unconvincingly small pen labelled "Rhinoceros' and a slabbed area with damp edges labelled "sea lion"; both were empty. A sad eagle was chewing out his feathers on a perch. And letting out a hard, terrifying roar was a huge black-maned lion.

For some reason, with Leonidas dead, the last thing I had expected to see was another great cat. He was caged up, thank Jupiter. I stood my ground, regretting the show of bravado. He was more than two strides long. The muscles of his long, straight back rippled effortlessly as he paced around. I could not imagine how anyone had ever captured him. He looked younger than Leonidas, and far more unhappy at being confined. A board leaning outside the bars said his name was "Draco". At my entrance he had rushed forwards and with a huge roar let me know what he would do to me, given the chance. When I faced up to him he prowled angrily, searching for a way to break free and attack.

I backed out of the room. The lion's roar had attracted attention from the slaves. They let out appreciative whistles at how he had made me go white. "Draco looks a handful."

"He's new; just off a boat from Carthage. He's going in the next hunt."

"Something tells me you haven't fed him yet. In fact he looks as hungry as if he hasn't been fed since he left Africa."

The slaves all grinned. I said I hoped the cage was strong. "Oh we'll be moving him later. He belongs in here normally. "

"Why has he been in solitary? Is he the bad boy of the class?"

"Oh..." Vagueness set in suddenly. "All the beasts get shifted to and fro a lot."

There was nothing to query in what they had told me, yet I felt a distinct doubt. Instead of creating a fuss, I merely asked, "Did Leonidas have a name board? If no one else wants it, could I have it for a souvenir?"

"All yours, Falco." They seemed relieved I had changed the subject. One of them went for the board, which I noticed he had to fetch from the inner room I was trying to remember whether Leonidas had had his official cognomen on his cage on previous occasions. I could not recall it, and when the board was brought out and displayed for me, I failed to recognize the uneven red lettering. I decided this was the first time I had seen it.

"Why were you keeping it in there instead of on his cage?"

"It must have been on the cage when he was in it."

"Sure?" They didn't answer. "All your animals have names, don't they?"

"We're a friendly group."

"And the crowd like something to yell out as the creatures go to their deaths?"

"Right."

"What's happened to Leonidas, now he's dead?" They knew I had a particular interest, because of Thurius. They must have guessed I had worked out for myself that the dead lion's carcass would become cheap fodder for some other animal. "Don't ask, Falco!"

I was not intending to stick my neck out here. Not in a place where even a keeper could completely vanish without trace. I had heard that crocodiles chew you up boots, belt and all. A hungry lion would probably clean his plate nicely too.

I wondered how many casualties had there been at this barracks? And had any of the victims ever died other than accidentally? This would be a good place to dispose of an unwanted corpse. Was Leonidas simply the latest in a line? And if so, why?

Feeling gloomy, I returned to the office where Anacrites had undergone one of his unpredictable mood swings and was now eager to please. To get my own back I pretended not to notice his welcoming smile, but wrote steadily on my tablet until he could bear it no longer and jumped up to see what I was doing. "That's poetry!"

"I'm a poet." It was an old ode I was scribbling to annoy him, but he assumed I had just composed it at speed while he watched. He was so easy to fool it was hardly worth the effort.

"You're a man of many parts, Falco."

"Thanks." I wanted to hold a formal reading of my work one day, but I was not telling him that. There would be enough hecklers if I invited my family and real mends.

"You wrote all those lines just now?"

"I can handle words."

"No one will argue with that, Falco."

"Sounds like an insult."

"You talk too much."

"So everyone tells me. Now talk yourself: earlier you mentioned some new information. If we are to stand a chance in partnership we have to share Are you going to cough?"

Anacrites wanted to look like the serious, responsible partner, so he felt forced to come clean: "Last night, someone brought a letter to your mother's house which purports to say who killed your friend Leonidas."

I noted the cautious administrator's way he insisted it was only "purported" information. He was so mealy-mouthed I could kick him. "And who does the purporter allege that to be?"

"It said Rumex did for that lion.' Interesting, eh?" "Interesting, if true It's too much to hope we know who Rumex is?"

"Never heard of him." Chief Spies never know anything. Or anyone.

"Who brought the note?" He looked at me, wanting for some perverted reason to be difficult. "Anacrites, I'm well aware my mother pretends to be deaf when it suits her, but if any stranger is crazy enough to approach her door especially after dark on a murky evening in winter--she pops out and grabs them before they can blink. So whose ear lobe did she twist off last night?"

"It was a slave who said a stranger had paid him a copper to bring the tablet."

"I suppose he swore it was a man he never saw in his life before?"

"Yes, that old line."

"Did you get the slave's name?"

"Fidelis."

"Oh a trusty fellow'! Sounds too good to be true."

"A pseudonym, I thought," mused Anacrites. He liked to be suspicious of everything.

"Description?"

"Slim build, under-average height, very dark colouring, stubbly jaw, off-white tunic."

"No dead eye, or his name tattooed in woad? Rome is full of identical slaves. Could be anyone of a million."

"Could be," replied Anacrites. "But it isn't. I was Chief Spy remember: I followed him home."

Surprised at his initiative, I made out I was unimpressed. "No more than you should have done. So where did the mysterious trail take you, sleuth?"

My partner gave me a knowing look. "Straight back here," he said.

XV

WITH ONE ACCORD we rose to our feet and went out to search the establishment. We found plenty of slaves, mostly smelling of stables, but none Anacrites could identify.

"Do we demand that Calliopus should produce him, Falco?"

"You're not a Palace torturer now. Leave it. He'll say he doesn't recognize your description as any slave he owns. And he'll imply you're a romancer."

Anacrites looked offended. Typical of a spy. We informers may be reviled by everyone but at least we have the guts to acknowledge how our reputation stinks. Some of us even occasionally admit that the profession has asked for it.

"How long did you wait outside after he got here?" I asked.

"Wait?" Anacrites looked puzzled.

"Forget it." He was a typical spy all right--absolutely amateur.

The messenger belonged elsewhere. Still, if he had turned up here once to contact somebody, he might come again.

"So what now, Falco? We need to interview this Rumex."

"Sorry to be logical, but we need to find him first."

"Aren't you anxious we'll lose the lead?"

"Somebody assumes we know who he is. So he'll probably come crawling out from under his stone if we just carry on as normal. Anyway, you were the one who said we were not to be sidetracked. If somebody's trying to give us something else to think about we don't have to comply like lambs. Let's go back to the office and concentrate on our tax report."

As we turned away to do just that, we ran into the bestiarius called Iddibal.

"Who is your fabulous lady admirer?" I chaffed him.

The young bastard looked me straight in the eye and claimed that the woman was his auntie. I looked straight back at him like an informer who had supposed that antique story went out with the Punic Wars.

"Know anyone called Rumex?" Anacrites then asked him casually.

"Why, who's he? Your bathhouse back-scratcher?" Iddibal sneered and went on his way.

I noticed a change in Iddibal. He seemed harder, and as if he were harbouring some new streak of bitterness. As he walked off in the direction of the throwing range Calliopus emerged from a side-room and said something to him in a very sharp voice. Maybe that explained it. Maybe Calliopus had pulled Iddibal up for the affair with his so-called aunt.

We waited for Calliopus to join us, then asked him the Rumex question. "Not one of my boys," he answered, as if he assumed it was a gladiator. He should have known we knew it was not one of his troop, or the man's name would have been on the list of personnel he had given us assuming the version he was offering to the Censors was accurate. He drew himself up for what looked like a prepared speech. "About Leonidas--you've no need to involve yourselves. I've looked into what happened. Some of the lads were playing up that night and the lion was let out for a bit of a lark. He turned troublesome, and they had to put him down. Naturally nobody wanted to own up. They knew I would be furious. That's all. It's an internal matter. Iddibal was the ringleader, and I'll be getting rid of him."

Anacrites gazed at him. For once I could imagine how it had felt in Nero's day to be interrogated by the Praetorian Guards in the bowels of the Palace with the notorious Quaestionarii in attendance, bringing their imaginative range of torture implements. "Internal? That's odd," Anacrites commented frostily. "We have received further information about the death of Leonidas, which doesn't square with that. He was killed by this man Rumex, apparently--though now you tell us Rumex is not one of your boys!"

"Save him having to be got rid of as you're planning for Iddibal," 1 said. Proposing a dubious fate for Rumex was, as it turned out later, a poignant piece of augury.

The lanista huffed and puffed for a moment, then thought of something urgent he had to run off and do.

Anacrites waited until we were back in the office and had the place to ourselves.

"So that's that, Falco. We may not have heard the whole story, but the lion's death need not trouble us any more."

"Whatever you want," I answered, with the smile I keep for butchers who sell last week's meat as fresh. "Still, it was good of you to defend my viewpoint when Calliopus was so obviously fibbing."

"Partners stick together," Anacrites assured me glibly. "Now let's finish taking the cheat apart for his financial misdemeanours, shall we?"

I stuck with the audit report like a good boy until lunchtime. As soon as my partner had sunk his jaws into one of my mother's homecooked rissoles and was preoccupied with mopping the squidged gravy from the front of his tunic, I let out a curse and pretended Helena had forgotten to give me any fish-pickle to sauce up my cold sausage, so I would have to go and scrounge some. If Anacrites was only half a spy he must have guessed I was bunking off to interview someone else about the lion.

I really did mean to go back to auditing later. Unfortunately one or two little adventures got in the way.