THE SHOW MUST GO ON AND OTHER CLICHES
Without a second thought, our esteemed leader produced a rather dangerous looking dagger from his boot and slashed at the limp cord holding Porcia prisoner. I couldn't really tell how serious her despising glare was, but since our troupe manager didn't burst into flames I supposed she must have lost some of her pent-up angst or was saving it for later.
Even more unexpected was the girl's next move. Almost as though I was the hero of the day she was no sooner free than as scampering my way. In reflex I went to defend my already grossly injured parts, but no kick, snatch, blow or head-butt came my way. She latched on to my arm as a leech on a damp spring day, and stood there as if I was her charger-riding defender.
Bollocks, what did she want? Sympathy?
Not likely – with one free hand it would be easier for her to pick my pockets clean again.
I felt for my purse, but it was still there.
So this was it then.
We gathered up our treasures – mine were fewer once Baebius made a grab for Merdius, but I got Mops, Pops and the half empty props cart – then headed off for the great Villas I could see teetering on the Acropolis.
One of these belonged to the Dictator's close confidant, Metrobius.
I guessed the gathering of Corinthian pillars that glowed in flowery lilacs and attractive mustards was the place.
All in all this particular outpost of opulence looked more like a sunburnt crab. And whatever the Greek stylising scrawled over the upper lintels said, it was obscured by the morning's haze of heat and clay kiln smoke. Typical of actors to make a statement that no one else could understand.
Arretium's Acropolis was perhaps overreaching itself to be described with the same gusto as those more famous uprisings scattered about Greece. Take the big hill in the middle of Athens for example. I mean that's an Acropolis. Great public buildings, important gods. Stone carved and shaped by the very hands of Athena herself – or some poor cove she found shirking freedom in Corinth.
But Arretium?
Well, that story's a little different.
Here a seven hundred foot projection sticks up out of the town in a most disturbing way.
Some time ago – a thousand years or so, because it was just a bit after the Iliad and a bit before Romulus pegged out his swamp by the Tiber – a dopey homeless Trojan wanderer called Aeneas arrived from Carthage and decided that living on a big rock would make a pleasant change from angry Greeks and mad Phoenician Queens.
Fair enough you might say.
But this git was so uppity he didn't build a temple to give thanks to Zeus, Hermes or Thera - oh no – he built one dedicated to himself.
What a pillock.
Ever since, his rich descendants have built fat villas of mustard plaster – and don't get me started on those ever-pontificating Julii in Rome who do the same thing – and all of it around a red worm-ridden wood construction of self-congratulation.
Meanwhile everyone else was made to live in shacks, stuck like barnacles, to the fair windward side of a hill someone jokingly decided to call the Acropolis. I mean these dimwits weren't even Greek. If only Paris had kept his paws off Helen, we wouldn't be stuck with this mess, and these quaint names the Etrurians were want to borrow could be still off in Asia Minor.
Perhaps then, this rock we were climbing would be known as something more Latin, such as 'Sodding Big Hill'.
Needless to say the ascent to wealth was far from easy breathing and inspiring.
The road through Higher Town wound about as a snake confused about where it was heading. I half expected we'd end up back at the gates we had just abandoned.
We didn't belong here. I could tell this by the looks the savvy businessmen and their painted-hussy-once-Gallic wives of the middle class gave. The hair prickled on the back of my neck as I considered the dangers of taking on the bored and wealthy.
At least a peasant robber usually only wants your money.
However, as a slight distraction, by this time Merdius had stood on Baebius' feet twice, licked his hair out of place and passed a surprising amount of excreta on a passing toga clad wheeler-and-dealer – who had made certain claims that suggested a lawsuit would be in the offing.
And of course when Baebius cursed him to several foreign purgatories and dared the fellow to find the town advocate, the response had been, “I am the town advocate.”
After this little run in, I was returned to favour.
Merdius and his wine jars came into my needy grasp while Pops and Mops got the boss back – after he'd shown the lawyer some of the painful repercussions of scurrilous and unproven litigations.
Behind me, Gavius loped along in his normal foot dragging limp and dazed persona – beside Baebius and the cart ponies. And in turn these poor creatures were tugging along Curtia. Her ladyship was lazing her legs on the buckboard in a most unladylike fashion, no doubt imagining that her conveyance was a litter borne upon the shoulders of four well-shaped Numidians.
Meanwhile Porcia continued to cling to my free left arm as if our relationship had risen above unrequited offerings from this dashing knight to something more approving to her.
Obviously whatever she was planning needed me to be alive just a little bit longer – such as to be caught in a compromising pose hovering over the dozing Dictator with a serrated fruit paring knife.
I could tell by the whistle in her nostrils that she wasn't frightened by this brush with the troupe manager – or really in need of my very limited protection. No, she was absolutely seething. I hoped for Baebius' sake he didn't accept a warmed cup of wine from this girl anytime soon.
“What's with the act this time?” I snuck out the side of my mouth.
“Do you want to see this day out?” she replied after a rather long pause.
It was almost as if she was trying to decide which was the lesser of two evils, leaving me out or counting me in.
“My old Ma would appreciate if I did,” I agreed far more hastily than my fiery redhead had responded, “my funerary fund is fairly liquid at the moment.”
“Then follow my lead.”
“What?”
That's it? Her plan was sure to be stymied by that level of simplicity, and I was hurt she might think me so easily swayed by empty offerings. Perhaps she would be open to some slight re-evaluation.
So I suggested, “What? To be some poor little doe-eyed fawn in need of the closest male company.”
“Keep it up puss features – but Baebius hasn't topped us yet – which was very much part of his plans earlier on.”
I had to gulp at that one.
Maybe our boss needed to re-examine standard employment policy – such as not knifing an underling because he almost stole the company's wad of cash.
Still I was open-minded enough to know our manager had less qualms than I had first expected. If he were smart enough to be the Phantom, he'd be bound to see the danger I was to him – which kind of flew in the face of not letting my festering bits being found in a street midden after lunchtime.
“So what's the go? Am I to believe this whole operation is a sham for Baebius to get close to the Dictator?”
“Think about git face,” Porcia sniffed the air as if I had made an offensive noise, “An acting troupe put together by someone with no apparent acting experience other than what he's seen in the closest dosshouse, and here we are, a gaggle of no names just a month later about to see what the Dictator of Rome uses for condiments.”
She tugged my arm to turn me about.
“A tricky set of coincidences don't you think?”
“I've given up thinking, petal,” I admitted as we came face to face, “All my poor little head can deal with is catching hold of three hundred thousand Sestercii then throwing it back into the water.”
“Life's more than just money, toe jam,” she went philosophical and looked ahead again.
“You didn't seem to have any qualms last night?” I tried to put her back on track.
“Well, if you could get past the fish for a moment dimwit, you'd see that if a hired killer found the till already cleaned out, he wouldn't be in a hurry to complete the contract…Would he?”
“How do you know that wasn't my very plan, and that I was not about to hand in the bonds with a full list of the co-conspirators to the nearest magistrate?”
“Because, beyond your very large nose, you can't imagine that far ahead tosspot.”
She did have a point. But a man's dreams were hard to ignore once your hand was in the biscuit jar. I doubt this little filly would have been in much of a hurry to present her findings to the official enquiry when someone else – such as me – squawked inside the Dictator's recently emptied prison in downtown Rome.
Now that he'd done over every paid up Populist he could find, the un-financial ones would be next. And in my current crisis, I was very un-financial.
The trouble was, despite however brilliant Porcia's plan of “Follow my lead,” might be, we were heading out of Lower Town, through the higher bit and to the very top, on a road with no through thoroughfare and ever further away from a certain fish going off in Claudius' shoebox.
“Hang a bit,” I finally caught up with today's troubles, “If you reckon the Phantom was off the job if his money went missing, why's Baebius pressing on without it?”
“Because you startled ferret, one – he thinks you've got it tucked under your tunic somewhere, and two – he needs you to be alive to play the villain today.”
“So then what?”
“By the gods, were you born this dull or did you drink yourself into this state?”
I wasn't sure of how to answer – but fortunately Porcia didn't give me time enough to offer one.
“He cuts you up piece by piece until he extracts his bond or a confession of where it's hidden – happy?”
“Not entirely.”
We pressed on in silence, which I for one thought was an improvement over the previous conversation.
Any more suggestions of how Baebius and me might pass the remainder of the day were, quite frankly, a little too upsetting to consider. And considering that Porcia was approaching my certain demise with a sense of expectation – rather than reasonable concern – did nothing to improve her aloofness from my predicament.
Sodding fish.
I cast a glance back to my old suffering hack.
Gavius mouthed something that looked like, “Git features,” or “Nice peaches”.
He seemed nonplussed with where this day was taking us. In fact I almost sensed a smile trying to lift the edges of each those hangdog lips. Was the schmuck really still excited his last performance was to be before the Dictator?
Clearly “last” was not figuring in the same sentence as “Dictator”.
Of course it was to be a great honour – even my worn out cynicism couldn't deny it – but there's no sense beating around the bush, it'd be a lot better if our play kept to the script and various characters and audience members were still vertical for the final curtain call.
Baebius continued looking smug, giving me a wink – that he knew I knew he knew. Not that it made much of a difference. His self-confidence gave him all the airs of someone filled up on cheap pottage and dealing with both wind and constipation concurrently.
Secretly I was praying he succumbed to one of his venereal diseases before the time came for me to squeak. Though, judging by his even stride and Pops recoiling at his boss' proximity, everything suggested the pillock was a picture of garlic and health.
It was about this time I began to be reminded how much was riding on everyone in or out of the plot.
You see, there's one thing about Arretium that has survived through the ages. This being, always picking the wrong side.
In the last ten years, our good solid Republic – three hundred years old and as sturdy as any old geezer that age – has suffered the ignominy of two civil wars.
One was the very antisocial “Social Wars” fought by these Etrurian ingrates so they could call themselves Roman. They lost, but still got to call themselves “Citizens” as if our good title were some booby prise to be handed out to bad neighbours – I've never been able to work that one out.
Then we had the little kafuffle between the Marian Populists and the Sullan Boni. No guesses on the outcome of that one either.
How this city was still standing was by the very efforts of the gods alone, and not thanks to the Sulla's old Ferox legion, who, only last year, had roamed the streets armed with flick lighters and angry dispositions – the same servants of the law I'd spotted down by the gates.
Yet as we entered the upper precinct of squat villas with mountain views, it started to become clear that at least a few countrymen had paid the Dictator's price for Arretium's continued redemption from a sudden fire in the nearest bakery.
Every one of those rich hoity-toity houses we passed was empty, with bold “SOLD” signs swinging in the air outside. There was a sense of abandonment that did my other sense of foreboding no good.
It seemed the proscriptions had made it here too.
I can tell you, if there is one time a rich man wakes up in the morning with a zest for life and a wanting to see new places, it's when his favourite slave brings the news that master's name has made it to the proscription list.
Anyone will do, if you've got talents of cash and poor political judgement, the ink'll still be wet on your life's forfeiture when some bounty hunter is pounding down the door.
Your treasures are ransomed to the tax office, your house tendered out to the lowest bidder and your wife and children sent to some hovel on the outskirts of town without so much as a how-do-you-do.
Nasty things proscriptions, but still, rich men's ills and nothing more. Not much chance of a sudden execution and stable-sale when your purse is empty and your life's-savings fit snugly into your shoe.
Except if you have a snivelling sinus problem like my cousin Gaius.
Still, to save you too much of my past glories, I'll keep that yarn for some time later, just to say, becoming an actor was not my very first career choice.
I have to say the proscriptions up this way had made quite an impact, for apart from two priests trying to drum up business for the Temple of Aeneas, we passed no one until we reached the sumptuous palace that was to be our stage.
But once our frightfully gaudy destination hove into view it was easy to see where all the action was. At half past seven in the morning, Metrobius' hopeful lunch guests had already got together their best togas and empty wine cups for a big day.
Outside the ivory painted front gates, a gaggle of militiamen were working through a small mob of well-to-do middle rankers and equestrians hoping their early morning invitations did not appear manifestly fraudulent. Some of the thin purple stripes had arrived upon stallions, others on litters, those in plain white togas rode mostly mules and donkeys, even a few came on shoe leather.
However, the twenty or so former legionaries on guard duty outside the daintily plinthed lilac and mustard monstrosity gave each and everyone a working over as if a good morning to stay in bed with a bad wife had been missed.
It was no secret someone of importance was inside the villa. But apparently the secret that no one but the absolute elite was expected today had not spread to these hopefuls and want-to-be's.
Given that we seemed to look no better than a flock vagrants hoping for some of last night's bread, a solid greeting with a cudgel started looking a hopeful way to make my escape from the Baebius' clutches.
But it was not to be.
As if it were a ribald tattoo upon my forehead, a shifty-looking tight-faced Ex-Centurion – still wearing his old scale jacket and transverse crested helmet over his white military tunic – and with a Suburan accent thicker than Curtia's, shot in our direction, “You the actors?”
I shrugged a yes, before Baebius took over the business of our being here. Somehow the Centurion knew all about us. This was an efficiency I'd never met before. Believe me, arguing with a wine merchant over your identity just five minutes after a hand shake deal to perform on his tables, can make you ready for any objection.
Yet here, the very spot where a shake-down and sort-out should have been as close as we got to getting in, we were treated like plumbers keeping the latrines flowing during the Saturnalia holidays.
We got a cursory eye over, and then a nod to the two bods clinging to the cast iron bastions ruling the driveway.
The gates groaned open and in we went, Porcia still locked to my left arm and Merdius to the other.
Our esteemed leader produced a line from Euripides about Griffons, Caves and copper buckets – all of it still piffle – just to show the jeering crowd as we passed.
Gavius went one better and cried a, “Into Hades we go, row my Ferryman, row… Double your time and a field of coin you will sow.”
He never spotted where the half-eaten apple came from.
Nearby one of the equestrians hoisted up his toga to a running position and shouted, “I'm with them, Centurion.”
The reply was the dull ring of a cudgel.
There was a cheer from the lessor parts of the crowd who thought the injury was good sport and then the gates crashed together behind us.
There was no escape.
We were inside the walls of the Villa. It looked the show was going on, with the Dictator and me stitched up for the finale. But at least there might be time for breakfast and brunch. No point perishing on an empty stomach.
