Two for Lions

Two streets away another Lepcis millionaire had built another commercial enclosure, this one with a dedication to Venus of Chalcis, where it looked as if large export contracts were being organized by evil, toothless, leather-ski

Seeing a lone male of foreign origin, persons enquired very helpfully whether I had need of a brothel. I smiled and refused. Some then went so far as to recommend their own sisters as clean, willing, and available.

I returned to the main market. There I found a pillar with some free doodling space and scratched up:

ROMANUS: SEE FALCO AT THE HOUSE OF RUTILIUS

If you sound as if you know people, sometimes they believe it is true. Besides, by now I had a disconcerting feeling that Romanus must indeed be an old acquaintance. If so, it was bad news.

I went to a bathhouse to test the local atmosphere. I got myself shaved, just as badly as anywhere else in the Empire. The theater was another Tapepius Rufus bequest, elegant in style and positioned with stu

I had done enough for a first scout around. It was time to resume contact with my family before they became tetchy being polite to the envoy, while I was out enjoying myself.

I followed the directions Rutilius had given me to the lavish maritime villa some local personage had made available to him (no doubt hoping to court popularity for Lepcis when the surveyor was apportioning land). The setup seemed secure. In case of trouble over his report, Rutilius had been assigned a squad of military bodyguards; he had also brought his own small domestic staff. All he needed for his own comfort now were a few politically neutral houseguests he could talk to, and we had provided those.

I told him he had to wave the white napkin at the Games; he groaned.

For the next few days I spent my working time trying to pin down the three lanistae I was studying. Saturninus was the easiest to locate. After all, he lived here. Rutilius gave me his address and I marked the house. Saturninus himself appeared the first day I was on watch outside. It was a shock to have come right across the dolphin-filled Mediterranean to find myself scrutinizing a suspect I last encountered months before in Rome.

He looked the same, but wearing loose, bright nomad robes-stylishly in keeping with his home province. Short, muscular, broken-nosed, balding, confident, urbane. Beringed to the point that I felt an austere Roman distrust of him. Still, I had always recoiled from his entrepreneurial attitude. He was not my type. That did not necessarily make him a criminal.

He swa

He came and went: forum (briefly); market (longer); baths (longer still); his local gladiatorial barracks (an interminable stay). Whenever he moved around in public places he made himself available to men of substance. He mingled. He laughed and chatted. He leaned down and spoke to little boys who were out with their fathers. He diced idly; he dallied coarsely with waitresses. He sat at tavern tables watching the world go by, so the passing world could come across and greet him like an uncle who had presents to hand out.

Presumably at his barracks he trained fighters just as he had done in Rome, though on a more limited scale. The outlets here were hardly the same as the great imperial festivals. But his men would appear at the next Lepcis Games. That might be worth watching.

Calliopus took longer to weed out. It was Helena who found him eventually; she heard his wife mentioned by name at the women's baths. Artemisia had never met my lass, so she would not recognize her; Helena took a chance that it was the right person and followed her home.

"She is quite young, slim, absolutely beautiful."

"Sounds like one of my old girlfriends," I commented. Very foolishly.

Later (in fact quite a long time later as I then had some domestic repair work to attend to), I watched the rented apartment that Helena had identified and saw Calliopus go out for his own ablutions that afternoon. Another old face: wide nose, flappy ears, thin, neat, crinkle-haired.

He and his wife led a much quieter life than the Saturninus ménage, presumably because in Lepcis they knew nobody. They sat out in the sun, went for meals in local chop houses, shopped gently. They gave the impression they were waiting for someone or something. I thought Calliopus looked worried, but then he had always been the tall, lanky kind who bit his nails over things others take in their stride.

The young wife was stu

I had sent Gaius down to the harbor to watch for when Ha

Ha

So they were all here. None of the three men appeared to make any attempt to meet the others.

We had Saturninus and Calliopus, just as Scilla had wanted, and I could offer her Ha

This was tricky. I could not guarantee that any of the parties would remain here long. I suspected that in view of their professional interest Ha

I had not forgotten that in my capacity as Census auditor I had made both Calliopus and Saturninus pay huge tax bills. They must both loathe me. I was none too keen on loafing around in their home province, just waiting for them to notice me, remember the financial pain I had caused, and decide to have me thrashed.