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“No. We were all in on it. The plan had been for me to do a moonlit flit, but in the end I wanted to be bought out properly. I ca
“Why did Calliopus pick you as a person to ask to kill Rumex?”
“A bribe. My aunt had already been to see him, and he knew I wanted to leave. If I killed Rumex, he said I could have my release in return.” Iddibal looked embarrassed. “I have to admit, even my aunt thought I should do it. Obviously it would have saved her a great deal of money.”
“Assuming you were not caught! When I was auditing Calliopus, I saw you and Myrrha arguing one night. Was that about killing Rumex?”
“Yes.”
“So she asked you to do what Calliopus wanted, and according to you, you refused.”
Iddibal wanted to protest, but he recognized I was goading him. Hunting was a game he knew. “Yes, I refused,” he reiterated quietly, keeping his cool.
“Nice Aunt Myrrha then agreed after all to find the money, and she found so much that Calliopus released you on the spot. Has this situation caused you any difficulties with your family since you came home?”
“No. My aunt and father have been very good about it. We are a close and happy family.” Iddibal stared at the ground, suddenly subdued. “I wish I had never got into all this.”
“It must have seemed like a brilliant adventure.”
“True.”
“You don't realize how complicated and dark that sort of adventure will become.”
“True again.”
I quite liked him. I didn't know whether I could believe him, but he was not sly, nor did he feign outrage when I asked him fair questions. And he had not tried to run away.
Of course ru
I told Iddibal I was staying with the special envoy who was surveying land. That had a nice official ring. I gave the young man a long, hard look, then issued the usual wonderful warning about not leaving town without telling me first.
He was young enough to assure me earnestly that, of course, he would do no such thing. He was naive enough to look as if he really meant what he said.
55
THE AIR WAS hot and dry. I walked to the north shore and up to the forum. Whereas the principal building materials in Cyrena?ca had been red-toned, Tripolitanian cities were gold and gray. Lepcis Magna hugged the coast so closely that when I entered the forum I could still hear the sea, surging against low white sand dunes behind me. There should have been bustle that would have masked the noise of the surf, but the place was dead.
The civic center must date from the very begi
The main temple, now opposite me as I emerged, had reassuringly familiar slim, smooth, Ionic columns, though even they had been given odd little floral sprigs between the volutes. I walked back to it and checked for messages: none. I left word myself of where I was staying in case either Scilla or Justinus turned up. I wanted to leave another message for somebody, but not here.
I retraced my steps down the silent side street between the temples and took the road into town. This was busier. Keeping to the shade on the left-hand side as it climbed slightly away from the shore, I passed or was passed by various laden mules and cheerful children pushing mountainously piled handcarts. Lockup shops and modest dwellings lined the streets, which were laid out in a neat enough grid. Activity was increasing the farther I walked. Eventually I came to the theater, and near it the market area where at last the hum was all I had expected in one of the great cities of the Emporia.
The main provisions market boasted two elegant pavilions, one round and drum-shaped with arches, one octagonal with a Corinthian colo
Beneath the kiosks' shade every kind of sale was being conducted on flat-topped stone tables, with the emphasis on domestic trade. Peas, lentils, and other pulses were piled in dry heaps; figs and dates were set out on fruit stalls; both raw almonds and cakes made from almonds and honey were temptingly available. There were fish. There were cereals. It was the wrong time of year for grapes, but I saw vine leaves, both ready-stuffed or strung together in brine to take home and stuff as you chose. Butchers, advertising with crude pictures of cows, pigs, camels, and goats, were honing their knives on a lion-footed bench in the weights and measures corner, while the weights and measures inspectors craned their necks over a hot game of draughts scratched on the ground.
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.