Furies (6 page)

The owner, a bald, dark-skinned man with hooded eyes and damp circles staining the armpits of his tunic, stood sweating behind a long, scarred marble counter. The length of the counter was interrupted every few feet by the purple-stained mouth of a large clay wine jar set into its surface. At the end of it was a charcoal brazier that filled the little tavern with eye-stinging smoke. The grill sizzled with chunks of meat and a simmering pot of water, the wall behind it charred with soot. Overhead, an arbour tangled with a few withered grape vines provided scant shade.  

“Ah, Silo,” Gellius called in a friendly manner to the capo. “Could I trouble you for a cup of wine? It’s not bad actually,” he told Aculeo. “A bit ordinary but …”

“Show me the money first,” the capo snapped.

Gellius glanced towards Aculeo, then looked away, not wanting to speak the obvious. “Some bread and meat as well,” Aculeo said reluctantly, flashing the capo some brass. They took a table in the corner facing the door and a serving girl delivered plates of gritty-looking bread, a shallow bowl of opson, some pickled radishes and a platter heaped with chunks of charred, gristly pork (at least he hoped it was pork) plucked from the brazier. The harsh wine burned Aculeo’s throat and made the backs of his eyes ache. The surface was swimming with little stems. He wisely put his cup down. Gellius ate hungrily, eyes closed, savouring each bite as though it were broiled peacock.

“Where’s Trogus?” Aculeo asked.

“Staying here with me of course. He’s gone out with Bitucus somewhere I imagine.”

Aculeo squirmed a little in discomfort. “Bitucus was caught up in things as well?”

“Of course,” Gellius scoffed. “Them and dozens more. Are you actually surprised?”

“I know it well enough.”

“You’re not a very popular man down here you know. Ah, here they come now.”

A pair of men approached the table. Trogus was squat, thick through the body with short, powerful arms and a dense, knotted brow that almost touched the crest of bristling black hair. Bitucus was his physical opposite, tall and slender, watery blue eyes in his long, moony face, his fair hair greying at the temples, long and unkempt now. Both men were badly in need of a shave, a bath and a haircut.

“What the fuck’s he doing here?” Trogus growled as he stared at Aculeo, his fists clenching at his sides, his face twisted in sheer loathing.

“Ah, Trogus, look who I met at the Hippodrome,” Gellius said brightly. “Aculeo broke my nose.”

“He what?” Trogus demanded, shoulders tensed like a big dog ready to attack. He started to cough rather violently then, his face turning reddish purple, eyes bulging from his face with every cough.

“It was a simple misunderstanding,” Aculeo said after the man had finally caught his breath. “I brought him back here afterwards.” Gellius shrugged unhelpfully, saying nothing in his defence. “Please, join us.” Bitucus eyed the food and drink hungrily, licking his lips.

“Yes, join us,” Gellius said, slapping the tabletop. “We’re still Roman after all, are we not?”

Trogus stood back in disbelief. “I’d sooner starve to death than sit with the likes of this thieving bastard!” Aculeo saw the man’s fine tunic had a poorly mended tear near the hip. His sandals were cheap and badly worn, and he had an infected-looking ulcer on his left shin.

“I think I should go,” Aculeo said, rising from his chair.

“But we just got here,” Trogus said, shoving him roughly back. “We never even had a chance to talk about what you did with our money!”

“I did nothing. I never actually touched it. And now I’m as broke as you. Whatever happened, I’m as much a victim of it as …”

“You’re a fucking liar!” Trogus cried, then started coughing again.

“Trogus, please,” Gellius said soothingly.

Trogus knocked his partner’s hand angrily away. “I can scarcely believe I was duped by the likes of you,” he said, his voice shaking, tears welling in his dark brown eyes. “We lost everything, him and I. Everything! We’ve been reduced … to this!” he cried, sweeping his hand about in disgust. A few patrons at the neighbouring tables looked up, shrugged and returned to their own conversations.

“Trogus, look at me,” Aculeo said. “Do I truly look like I’m living well?”

The other man moved in close, his breath hot and foul. “You’re still breathing aren’t you? That’s more than you deserve.”

Bitucus suddenly sat down and scooped some food onto an empty plate. Trogus looked at him in disbelief. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“What’s it look like?” Bitucus asked, swiping a crust of bread through the meat juices and popping it into his mouth, chewing noisily.

“It looks like you’re betraying everything we stand for, you stupid shit.”

Bitucus shrugged and poured a cup of wine. “I’d betray every one of my fucking ancestors if it means a full stomach for a change.”

“Stupid son of a bitch.” Trogus glowered at Aculeo one last time before limping out of the tavern.

“Give him a chance to cool his head,” Gellius said, filling his plate with more food. “He’s a proud man. This whole mess hit him hard. It’s hit all of us, of course, but him most of all I think.”

“Your wife left you I heard,” Bitucus said abruptly, more a statement of fact than a question.

Aculeo shrugged and nodded. “She took Atellus back to Rome for a while.”

“My wife and daughter went to Antioch to stay with her sister,” Bitucus said, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m planning to join them as soon as I have the passage money. Say, you wouldn’t happen to …?” Bitucus gave him a pleading look.

“Hardly,” Aculeo said.

Bitucus sighed. “I feel like I’m going mad these days, living here like this. After my family left, Gellius and Trogus kindly took me in. We hoped to climb out of this mess together.”

“More like drowning men clutching onto one another in a storm,” Gellius said. “We’ll likely all drag one another down in the end.”

“An unfortunate analogy under the circumstances,” Bitucus mused.

“Tell us what you know,” Gellius said, putting a hand on Aculeo’s arm. “Please.”

And so he did.

Aculeo had joined up with Corvinus over a decade ago after his father’s death. A former associate of his father, some had intimated that the man had only wanted to use Aculeo’s family name and status to further himself, for Corvinus was only of the equestrian class after all, but it had mattered little at the time. Aculeo’s father may have been of more noble blood but the inheritance he’d left behind was barely enough to cover his funeral. So Corvinus had stepped in and extended a hand, lifting Aculeo from that mess, teaching him the grain business, encouraging him, helping him invest in his own small fleet.

Corvinus, a rotund little man with a sparkle in his eyes, a rapid patter, ready laugh and a thousand filthy jokes to tell, always made anything seem possible. And so it had been for well over a decade. Over the years they’d financed many of the great ships that transported grain shipments to Rome to fill the permanently gawping mouths of the always growing empire. The tremendous returns on their investments had swelled everyone’s purses.

They’d started with half a dozen two-sailed vessels and done quite well even before they were awarded a prized annona contract to Rome. That had led to rapid expansion, building a fleet that included a pair of massive freighters, each over 100 cubits in length and capable of carrying over 120,000 modii of grain in their vast holds. In just eight years, Aculeo had managed to turn father’s inheritance of a handful of tarnished brass into something truly phenomenal, spinning grain into a mountain of gold.

Not that they weren’t always looking for private investors to fund the expansion of the fleet, anything to keep it growing and out of the hands of the bankers and grasping moneylenders like Gurculio. What did we have to lose? Nothing. Nothing at all. It was easy money … or so it always seemed. You could trust Vibius Herrenius Corvinus after all.

And so, of course, when Corvinus came asking that last, fateful time, Aculeo could hardly have said no. He’d borrowed the necessary cash as had many of the other investors. Iovinus, their negotiatore, had arranged everything, borrowing from various moneylenders, Gurculio foremost among them. And while Aculeo had to mortgage virtually everything to cover the loan, he’d done so with only minor hesitation, even at the Roman’s exorbitant rate of interest – twelve percent per week.

Still, the interest rate had seemed of little consequence in the greater scheme of things as the loan was only for a short term, a few weeks at most. Besides, hadn’t the opportunity been even grander than ever before? After the first storm at Portus, the subsequent demand for grain had soared, prices could be doubled, trebled, the difference pure profit …

Until the gods had sunk the second fleet as well, taking Iovinus and the ships’ crews down with it. Everything had been lost, Iovinus had drowned, Corvinus was dead – a loss Aculeo still couldn’t fully fathom. All gone, their lives and fortunes with it …

“Or so I thought,” Aculeo said.

“What do you mean?” Bitucus asked.

“I saw Iovinus at the Hippodrome this morning.”

“What?” Gellius asked, almost choking on a mouthful of the wretched wine.

“I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Iovinus is still alive?” asked Bitucus.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“What do you think happened?” Gellius asked.

“A good question. Steered the ships to another port, sold the grain there most likely.”

“I never liked that little shit,” Bitucus said.

“We have to find him then,” Gellius pronounced.

“A brilliant revelation, how did you possibly think of it?” Bitucus said acidly.

“I would have had him this morning if you hadn’t stabbed me,” Aculeo said, wincing as he touched his wounded shoulder.

“You stabbed Aculeo?” Bitucus asked.

“Never mind that,” Gellius said. “Don’t you get what this means? There’s still hope!”

“What are you talking about?” Aculeo asked.

“Think about it! Sunken ships are one thing, but stolen ships are something else entirely.”

Damn. He’s right, Aculeo realized. He felt a thin, warm wedge of hope invade his heart for the first time in months. “Perhaps. But it will only help us if we can find him. Who else knows Iovinus? Does he have any family or friends?”

They thought in silence for a moment. Iovinus was a different sort of fellow, brilliant at numbers and the like but not the sort of person who gathered friends easily.

“There’s Pesach,” Bitucus suggested.

“Yes,” Gellius said. “If Pesach was friends with anyone it was Iovinus.”

Aculeo recalled Pesach dimly, a small-time investor that he’d met at a dinner once. An annoying little fellow, boorish, constantly pestering himself and Corvinus about details of the business instead of socializing like a civilized person. “Where might we find him?”

“I heard he was sold into slavery when he couldn’t pay his debts,” said Bitucus. “Someone mentioned they’d spotted him fetching pisspots from a public latrine.”

“A fuller’s slave?” Gellius asked in horror. Bitucus shrugged.

Aculeo shuddered at the thought, While he barely knew Pesach and disliked what little he knew, the very idea of a Roman citizen being sold into slavery was atrocious. And to a fuller? The poor wretch would be lucky to survive the year.

“I’d have killed myself before letting that happen,” Gellius said with a shudder.

“Do you know where he is?” Aculeo asked.

“Near the fabric makers’ macellum in Gamma is all I know,” Bitucus said.

“It’s a start,” Aculeo said. He dropped a few coins on the table and stood to leave.

“Wait, where are you going?” Gellius asked.

“To find Pesach,” Aculeo said. “Then I’ll find Iovinus and get my money back.”

“Our money you mean,” Bitucus said sharply.

“Yes, Aculeo, our money,” Gellius said, almost desperately. Aculeo looked at the other men with their haunted eyes, gaunt, unshaven cheeks, so utterly broken from the fellows he’d known. And so like himself.

“Of course,” Aculeo agreed. “Our money.”