The Lydian Baker (Marcus Corvinus Book 4) Read online

  Now he told me. Oh, great; perfect, in fact. That was all I needed. We could hold hands on the way down.

  I shut up and started to pray in earnest.

  The 'Alcyone' took off like a swallow: well, at least he'd been right about the wind. I'd thought we'd hug the coast, but he set the oar straight and we went barrelling out into open water. It was choppy as hell, and I couldn't see the bottom. Maybe that was just as well.

  'Nice weather for a sail, isn't it?'

  The bastard was needling me intentionally, but at that precise moment I had other things on my mind. Like what was happening just south of my ribcage.

  'Yeah,' I said. 'Beautiful.' Jupiter! This was... I gulped. 'Hey, Smaragdus, you think maybe we could...'

  Too late. I'd hardly got the last word out before my stomach gave up the unequal struggle and I lost my breakfast to the fish.

  I wasn't feeling all that hot an hour later when we finally reached the far side of the Gulf, either. Happy the farmer who knows not the sea. Still, I had to hand it to Smaragdus, the guy knew what he was doing; he brought us into the cove sweet as a nut and pulled the Alcyone up on to the beach while I lay in the pointed end and sweated.

  'We're there,' he said. 'Now we walk.'

  'Fine, fine.' I tried standing up, but my legs felt like they'd been filleted and there was a taste in my mouth like something had died there. If that was sailing then I'd take a five-star hangover any time. 'Just give me a minute, okay?'

  Smaragdus laughed. Sadistic bastard. I climbed out, eventually. Sand and pebbles underfoot had never felt so good. I took a deep breath and opened my gummy eyes.

  'So where's this cave?' I said.

  'That way.' He pointed inland. 'Not far, about a quarter of a mile.'

  A quarter of a mile. Great. The ground was heaving. If I'd ever wondered why Poseidon is both the sea and the earthquake god I had my answer. 'You say you do this often, pal?'

  'Often enough, in fine weather. You Romans never have made good sailors.'

  'No arguments there, Agrippa.' I scooped up a palmful of water, rinsed the bird-shit from my mouth and eyes and took a few more deep breaths. Things were starting to look a bit better. Meaning the hills weren't jumping around so much any more. 'Okay. So let's go.'

  He led the way up a goat-track along the edge of the cove and into the scrub beyond. The ground began to rise steeply.

  'You're telling me these two guys –Polybus and Phrixus – carried the treasure all this way?' I was gasping already; the aftereffects of the sea- sickness.

  'Obviously.'

  'That amount of bullion would've weighed a ton. Literally.'

  'I told you.' Smaragdus hadn't broken stride. 'They had help, and they did it in stages. Besides, they had to. The caves in Thieves' Cove were used by smugglers. Choosing one of them would have been too risky.'

  That made sense. All the same, I wouldn't've liked to do it myself even at my best. It couldn't have been easy. Some places even a goat would've had problems.

  And speaking of goats...

  I was beginning to notice certain things; like the marks on exposed parts of the path. Goats might have feet, but even the Greek variety didn't wear hobnailed sandals.

  'Hey, Smaragdus,' I said.

  He turned back. 'Yes?'

  'I thought we were out in the sticks here. This path used much?'

  'Not that I know of. We're a long way from the road.'

  'Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought.' I was getting a bad feeling about this: the marks looked recent.

  'We're almost there now.' Smaragdus nodded towards a small cliff. 'That's the place up ahead.'

  I looked. Gods. If that was Polybus's hidey-hole I wasn't surprised it had stayed lost for so long. The 'cave' wasn't so much a cave as a wide split at the base of the cliff, screened by bushes and half-buried in rubble; the remains of the rock fall Smaragdus had mentioned, no doubt. Before that had been cleared away the place wouldn't have merited a second glance.

  Smaragdus produced a lamp and a tinder-box from the satchel he was carrying.

  'It doesn't go all that far back,' he said, 'but it's much deeper than it looks. We'll need light.'

  'Fine.' While he got the lamp going I examined the ground in front of the entrance. There were more sandal prints and a deep dent. A very deep dent, like something heavy had rested there...

  Smaragdus held out the lamp. 'After you, Corvinus.'

  'You're the host, pal. You go ahead.'

  We clambered over the tumble of rocks and into the cleft itself. There was more room inside once we'd passed the entrance; plenty of room.

  Too much room, in fact.

  Polybus's cave was bare. As in 'empty'. Yeah, well, I couldn't say I was exactly surprised. And it had all been a little too good to be true. Sure, Smaragdus hadn't been spinning me a yarn: there'd been something here all right, that was obvious, something heavy that had left deep-scored rowels in the earth of the cave floor where it had been dragged towards the entrance.

  Smaragdus's mouth was hanging open like someone had cut the cords.

  'It was here!' he said. 'I swear it was!'

  'Okay.' I sighed. 'I believe you. But it's gone now and there's nothing we can do about it. Let's get into the open air.'

  We clambered out.

  'Corvinus, I swear to you...' Smaragdus was still looking like someone had slugged him with a blackjack.

  'Yeah, I know.' I pointed to the dent in the ground and the sandal prints. 'You can see the marks where they pulled it out and took it down to the cove.' Jupiter! The thing must've weighed a ton! But then how heavy is a four-and-a-half feet high solid gold statue?

  'But who did it? No one else knew, only me and Argaius.'

  I hesitated. 'This Eutyches guy. You brought him here?'

  'No. No, I've never met him. Nor had Argaius, as far as I know.'

  'How about Argaius himself? Would he have moved the Baker for any reason?'

  Smaragdus was still in shock. 'No. It was safe enough here. And he couldn't have done it alone, anyway.'

  True enough; even as an outside chance it was unlikely. Besides, the answer was obvious. I thought of the smashed-up doll with the gashed throat on Callippus's table. You don't kill the golden goose until it's laid its egg, and a severed throat is pretty final in anyone's book. Whoever had killed Argaius already had what he wanted.

  There was only one candidate, too.

  'So,' I said. 'This Eutyches. What exactly do you know about him?'

  'Nothing.' Smaragdus raised his head. The guy looked sick. 'I swear, nothing, only the name. Argaius handled the business side on his own. That's how the partnership worked'

  'What about that final meeting? In Mounychia?'

  'He told me about it, certainly, but I wasn't involved. It didn't need both of us. And like I said I left the business arrangements to him. He was better at them than I was'

  'Uh-huh.' Not good enough, though, that much was obvious. Well, like I'd said there was nothing to be done about it now: the bastard already had his statue and I might as well go home and take up embroidery. 'You want to report this to the Watch?'

  'There isn't much point, is there?'

  That came out bitter as hell. Yeah, well, the guy was right. Callippus would go through the motions, sure, but there wasn't a whole lot he could do. Or, considering the circumstances, even want to do. I said nothing.

  'I'm sorry about this, Corvinus. Really sorry.'

  'That makes two of us, pal. Three, counting Priscus.' The old guy would take it hard; when he'd written that letter he'd thought the deal was in the bag. Mother would be pretty peeved as well. I'd write to them tonight.

  'You don't want to change your mind? About going back in the "Alcyone"?' Smaragdus tried a grin. The effect was ghastly.

  'No.' In my present mood that would've put the lid on. 'No, I'll walk. Lysias will be waiting. Thanks all the same.'

  'Fine.'

  He hadn't moved, and he still looked grey as death; but there
was nothing I could do for him, not now. I gave a half-hearted wave and started off up the hill in the direction of town.

  10.

  When I got to the Aphrodisian Gate there was still no sign of Lysias with the carriage. Bugger. The end to a perfect day. I parked myself outside a handy cookshop with a good view of the gate and ordered up a jug of Chian. After walking across what felt like half of rural Attica I could've murdered a plate of bean stew to go with it, but I took one look at the waiter leaning against the door jamb and digging the wax from his ears with the blunt end of a snail-spoon and decided to forego the pleasure. Pissed off and starving I might be, but I wasn't that desperate.

  Besides, I think best on an empty stomach and a full wine jug. Food's a distraction.

  So. What had we got here? What had happened was clear enough: Eutyches, whoever he was, had suckered Argaius into a bogus meeting on Mounychia, bundled him up, taken him somewhere quiet and persuaded him with the help of Prince Charming and a crowbar to reveal the whereabouts of the Baker. Having got the information he wanted he'd slit the guy's throat, dumped him at the Founders' and raided the honey-pot, leaving me sitting on my hands and looking like ten different kinds of fool just when I'd been congratulating myself on tracking down Argaius's partner...

  Yeah. Smart work, right? The question was, what was I going to do now? I couldn't give up; no way. Sure, I'd lost the statue, but I still had a lead or two, and now I had a personal axe to grind. No one likes to be made a mug of, and just the thought of the sneer on Prince Charming's face had me reaching for the razor. When I did find Eutyches – and find him I would – the guy was catfood.

  Okay. So let's start from the other end and think with my brain instead of my backside this time. Just what did I know about Eutyches? Sure, the name was common enough to fit a good slice of the City population, but I could narrow the field a lot more because my Eutyches would have to satisfy certain criteria. First of all, he needed to be, if not rich, at least pretty well-heeled: to hook Argaius and establish his street cred he'd've needed to put up a show of wealth at least, and hired help like Prince Charming, plus the tame muscle he'd need to shift the Baker, wouldn't come cheap. Slaves, plural, cost money, even if they are just bullion-shifters. And freemen who had to be squared would rate even higher.

  Yeah. So. Let's call the guy 'comfortably off' at worst. From a cultured background, what's more: if Perilla was right, and his choice of Ptolemy's statue as the dumping place for Argaius's corpse was deliberate, then the guy was a prime culture-vulture, someone who was up to indulging himself with chichi literary puns that were way beyond the average punter. Second, unless his only concern was the Baker's meltdown value – which was a possibility, but I doubted it somehow – he had at least an educated layman's interest in art. Scratch that: given he was prepared to go to any lengths to get what he wanted, Eutyches had to be a full-fledged antiquities nut in the same league as Priscus, only without Priscus's scruples.

  He had to be capable of murder, too. Second-hand murder, at any rate. That went without saying.

  I picked up my wine cup and took a thoughtful swallow. I'd have to remember this place: otocathartic waiters or not, their Chian wasn't bad, especially with nothing to soak it up. I was feeling brighter already.

  Fair enough. I'd got myself a profile, and it hung together. A Eutyches who fitted as narrow a description as that shouldn't be all that difficult to trace; in fact, a word to Bathyllus might do it, because even in the short time we'd been here he'd built up a knowledge of the Athenian social register that almost equalled his shit-hot mastery of the Roman one...

  Only asking Bathyllus who Eutyches was wouldn't do a blind bit of good because the guy didn't exist; I'd bet a used boil plaster to a double consignment of Setinian on that right now. He couldn't exist, because neither Smaragdus nor, by implication, Argaius knew anything about him, and they should have done. Sure they should: as decent-living, hard-working professional con-men they'd carry a list of possible marks in their heads. A rich antiquities buff like Eutyches would stick out like Priapus in a lettuce bed. Neither of the partners had ever seen the bastard face to face, either, barring, perhaps, Argaius's final – and fatal – interview on Mounychia. That was significant too.

  The explanation was simple: if I was right, and the description did fit, then Eutyches wasn't the guy's real name at all.

  Okay. Now we were getting somewhere. If 'Eutyches' was an assumed name the field was wide open again. So who did I already know who was comfortably off but not filthy-rich enough to do things honestly; well-read and cultured, with certain show-off tendencies; an art-freak on Priscan lines; who knew that the Baker had come onto the market; and finally who was someone strong-minded enough – potentially, at least, in my opinion – to contemplate murder as a means to an end?

  Correct. I took a smug mouthful of the Chian.

  One got you ten that Eutyches was my oenophilic pal Melanthus.

  The old brain wasn't working too badly after all, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself: I could fit a name to Eutyches and I'd a jug of wine in front of me that was well on the good side of drinkable. No sign of Lysias yet, but I wasn't complaining: there aren't many pleasures that measure up to sitting in front of a cookshop by a busy street looking at life go by. I watched an argument between a porter and a customer who reckoned the guy had delivered his basket of fish in a poorer condition than they'd started out, and picked up a few choice words to add to my Greek vocabulary. Then there was a real honey of a girl with a figure that even from what I could see of it under her cloak wouldn't've looked out of place on a sculptor's model. And finally, just when Lysias drove up and parked in the carriage rank next to the gate, there was a big, flashy Ethiopian on a mule...

  You don't see many Ethiopians even in Athens, let alone out here in the sticks. He wasn't a slave, either, or at least he wasn't dressed like one. And like I say he was big: you could see the muscles straining against the seams of his tunic, which was one of the snazziest I'd seen in a long while: canary yellow with a red stripe up the side and a broad belt studded with gilt nails and scraps of coloured glass that winked in the afternoon sunlight.

  The guy wasn't in any hurry, that was for sure. He'd stopped by the horse trough beside the gate and dismounted to water the mule. Now he was looking in my direction, or rather in the direction of the cookshop. I thought for a moment he'd come over, but he seemed to change his mind and just sat down on the edge of the trough and communed with nature while the mule took on water one end and got rid of it the other.

  Lysias turned the carriage and gave me a wave. Okay. End of floorshow, time to go home. I left a silver piece on the table and walked over to the rank. The Ethiopian's eyes followed me. It was unnerving, like being ogled by two hardboiled eggs smothered in octopus ink. Yeah, well, maybe a Roman in this part of the Piraeus was as rare a sight to him as an Ethiopian was to me. I gave him a nod as I passed but he didn't respond.

  'Okay, Lysias,' I said, climbing aboard the carriage. 'Take it away.'

  We were halfway to the Hamaxitos when the hairs at the nape of my neck started to crawl. That doesn't happen often, but when it does I listen. On a sudden hunch, I opened the flap at the back of the carriage and looked out. Sure enough, the Ethiopian was behind us. And that was strange, if you like, because when I'd first seen him the guy had been headed the other way, out of town towards Echelidae...

  Okay, it might be coincidence; certainly it wasn't worth making a fuss over. Maybe he'd suddenly remembered he'd left the stew pot on at home or had a premonition he'd be mugged by a visually-challenged bear with a down on loud tunics; or maybe he'd just decided that Athens couldn't get along without him after all. Whatever his reasons, they were his own business, and probably as innocent as a virgin's dreams.

  Still, it didn't explain the twitching of my neck-hairs. And some of those virgins' dreams can be pretty hot stuff. I'd be willing to lay a substantial bet that the flashy bastard was a tail.

  Th
e question was, whose was he, and why?

  I closed the flap and settled down to think.

  11.

  When I finally got back, Perilla was in the sitting-room. Happy was something the lady wasn't.

  'Corvinus, where on earth have you been?' she said. 'Meton's livid! Dinner's been ready for hours!'

  Uh-oh. That sounded bad. Hell hath no fury like an angry chef's, and Meton took his duties seriously. By his code of conduct, coming in late for dinner was tantamount to giving the Germans free passage across the Rhine and a complimentary crack at Gaul. Well, it was too late to do anything about that now.

  'I'm sorry,' I said. 'Things took longer than I'd thought.

  'Did you find Smaragdus?'

  'Yeah, I found him. For what it was worth.' I told her what had happened. She listened in silence.

  'You're sure the statue was there?' she said at last.

  'I'd bet good money. And apropos of that, I know who took it. Our tame art expert from the Academy.'

  'Melanthus?' Perilla stared at me, her eyes wide. 'But Marcus..!'

  'Excuse me, sir.' Bathyllus had oozed in. 'Dinner is served. As of two hours ago.'

  I considered telling him to stick his canapés where he wouldn't find them for a month, but that would just have played into the bastard's hands. Instead, I kept my face straight. Bathyllus hates that.

  'You care to divulge the menu, little guy?'

  'Certainly, sir. Overdone chicken dumplings, slightly warm peas vinaigrette and a wilted endive salad.'

  'Yum. Sounds great. I'm starving. Serve it up.'

  Bathyllus hovered, fizzing quietly.

  'Meton says he admits no responsibility,' he said finally.

  'Good, good.' I poured myself a drink from the jug which I'd brought in from the hall. 'Tell him better late than never, okay?'

  'I'm sure that will be a great comfort to him, sir.'

  Weak. I grinned: game to me for a change. 'How's our new pet, by the way?'

  'Alexis is doing his best, sir, but it's an uphill struggle. The bird's vocabulary is irrevocably tainted.' A disapproving sniff: if the super- straight Bathyllus had his way Nestor would be burger.