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The ferry was attacked by another boat."
What?"
Sure thing, chief. A gang had hijacked a tugboat. Four or five of them. The two scribes were coming over on one of the big Lucullan ferries Four different ferry services plied across the Tiber daily. The Lucullan line had multiple oars and took both passengers and heavy goods. They were big, unwieldy vessels.
And where were all of you?" asked Petro coldly. I told you to keep a close tail on the scribes."
We were in one of the vigiles skiffs, most of us. Parvus was supposed to stick with them on the ferry. Rubella said only one man was to be that close, in case they got suspicious."
Rubella Petronius came even nearer to the boil.
If a tribune wants to come on a mission, chief
If he does, you lose him! Tell me the rest of this disaster."
Parvus couldn't get on the right ferry, because of the crowds, so he was squashed on the Rusticelian one Just a rowing boat for passengers. But it was crossing at the same time, more or less parallel. He could see what was happening. The gang rammed the Lucullus ferry, jumped aboard, and ransacked the purses of everyone, all the passengers. Rubella reckons robbing the others was to make it look good."
He thinks the Damson Flower instruction was just to get the scribes on the river?" snarled Petro. This was how the money was always going to be collected? So the scribes had their chest taken in the scrum?"
Whipped off them and passed to the tugboat before you could blink."
So where was Rubella while this pastoral scene unfolded?"
In our skiff. Jumping up and down and spitting fire. He kept yelling to be rowed nearer, but to be honest, none of the lads is very good at steering." Every time a vigiles detachment was assigned to Ostia, the troops had to learn to manage their boat. In Rome they did not need one; there were bridges.
And where is Rubella now?"
Ostia. Comforting the scribes and explaining to them, they are just victims of a trick." Petronius ran his hands through his hair, taking this in. Always concerned for the men's safety, he asked in a more temperate voice,
Anyone attempt to fight back? Any casualties?"
Parvus. He jumped into the water and swam over from the ferry he was on. He managed to get aboard the Lucullan. He's a mad devil – he whacked one of the gang with an oar, nearly split his head open As fire-fighters, the vigiles are an unarmed force. They can do a lot with fists and feet, or they improvise. But then someone poked Parvus in the guts and he fell off the ferry."
Is he all right?"
He went under. Rubella and some of the lads jumped in after him. We fished him out, but that held us up. By then, the gang were back on the tugboat, laughing at us all as they rowed off at a lick down stream. We tried to follow but the ferries got in our way."
On purpose?"
Well, there was chaos. The current was swirling boats everywhere. The thieves seemed to know what they were doing on the water, but there were some collisions. I thought we were going to sink. We found the tug soon afterwards. They beached it by the Isis sanctuary; there's no sign of them now, and of course nobody saw anything suspicious when they landed there, or so they all say." The man fell silent, looking guilty. After a moment, Petro clapped the vigilis on the shoulders, to show there were no hard feelings. Then he signalled to Fusculus [who had been listening in, though at a careful distance. They summoned the troops and set about a full internal search of the Damson Flower.
Take this joint apart!" ordered Petronius. Sometimes he showed greater respect for people and property. But he had to relieve his feelings somehow.
XLVII
It was not the first time Petro and I had been in a brothel, always for professional purposes, of course. We had once risked our lives and our reputations in the biggest love nest Rome could offer, vainly searching for the gangster father-in-law of Petro's bugbear Florius. By comparison, the Damson Flower was tiny and its services basic, though like all port establishments it had its own salty colour. Small cells on two floors offered little more than hard, narrow beds. The deluxe ones each had a clothes hook outside in the corridor. The imperial suite boasted a cupboard containing a piss pot. Despite looking deserted from the quay, when we burst through the main door with belligerent vigiles greetings, the interior coughed up a slew of disreputable occupants. Sheepish sailors emerged from all quarters, many carrying kitbags and looking as if they were using the place simply as a cheap hotel. The girls came in many flavours, from sloe-eyed Easterners, through dusky dames from i
Have you even been in a bats" cave, Falco?" demanded Petro scathingly. I was a spare-time poet; he had always disapproved of my fanciful tendencies.
Imagination is a rare talent."
How about you apply it to helping us process these desperadoes?" The madam had refused to speak to us, it being a tenet of her trade that since she was a legal outcast because she was a prostitute, law officers from Rome had no jurisdiction over her. That was how she put it, anyway. Fusculus argued against this circular philosophy with the vigiles" trenchant wit and good ma
Is that near Agrigentum?" The bouncer had been well trained in playing dumb, even when at risk of becoming a eunuch. We gave up on him. As a symbol of us giving up, Petronius clouted his ear. Petronius then explained to the watching customers that he was eager to try out his squeezing and clouting techniques on other parts of the anatomy, so anyone who wanted to give him any trouble could be a volunteer. This was too sophisticated, and anyway most of them were foreign. Or so they claimed. It was true that they all had great difficulty even understanding a request for their names and livelihoods. Petronius Longus put the men in a line, guarded by his troops, and said he would now go through the process of checking whether the customers were free Roman citizens or runaway slaves; he explained that although he hated xenophobia, he would be obliged to pay particularly close attention to those who were foreign. Anyone who did seem to be a runaway would be put in a heavy neck-collar and imprisoned until a country-wide search for his master had been carried out; due to pressure of work there was no guarantee at the moment how long these searches might take… But not to fear. all anyone had to do to be in the clear was to produce his valid certificate of Roman citizenship. Nobody carries their certificate around with them. Many citizens in Rome do have a birth certificate [or did when they were born and registered, freed slaves are given a tablet, and all ex-army perso