He stared at her. She said nothing. That was Maia. “And what about you?” Petronius dared to ask. “Suppose I had been lost—”
“Shut up,” said Maia. Then she buried her face against his chest and held him tight, sobbing. Petronius bent his head over her so they were close when she looked up again.
Maia had clearly prepared this speech sometime before: “I took the children out on the river to have time with them and talk about going home,” she said. “And now I need to talk to you.”
“I am ready to listen,” replied Petronius. This was not strictly true. Instead, that rascal’s way of listening was to demonstrate to Maia that he was keen on kissing.
Helena thumped me in the ribs, as if she thought that I was laughing. No chance. I had just seen my best friend throw himself into a life fraught with risk, and my sister agreeing to it. On both counts I was too shaken to mock.
We went outside eventually. The legionaries were clearing up. The prisoners had left. I muttered to Silvanus that Norbanus Murena was dead. We discussed what to do with the body. “Which way is the tide flowing?”
“Going out,” he said.
“The ebb? That will do fine.”
Silvanus took the point. He lent a couple of lads for the business. Petronius and I went back in the warehouse with them, and we carried out Norbanus, one man to each arm and leg. We brought the corpse to the edge of the wharf, just below what Hilaris had once called the temporary permanent bridge. We swung together a few times to get up a rhythm, then we let fly. Norbanus Murena sailed out a short distance over the Thamesis, then splashed in. We had not weighed him down. Nobody wanted him to hang about in the port area then one day come bobbing up again. Let him be washed well down the estuary and beached in the mud or the marshes.
If this town ever became a great metropolis, plenty of corpses would wind up in the river. Londinium would be a draw for drownings, through grisly foul play or tragedy. Some would even end up as floaters by accident. Over the coming centuries this great river would see many—the newly dead, the long dead, and the living sometimes, drunk or distraught or maybe merely careless, all pulled to oblivion by the strong dark currents. Norbanus could set a precedent.
As we watched him lurch and vanish, the procurator Hilaris arrived, anxious to inspect his damaged boat. He had had it for years (I had borrowed it myself); he used it for trawling along the south coast to his houses at Noviomagus and Durnovaria. Maia rushed up, to explain what had happened in the storm. Petronius glued himself to her. I saw her hand wind into his. They could hardly bear to be apart.
We brought Hilaris up to date on the gangsters. He made no comment on what had happened to Norbanus, though he must have seen our disposal measures.
“Well, you’ve cleaned up the town for us, Marcus! I knew I could rely on you.” The words sounded flippant, but anyone who thought it would underestimate him. “And thanks, Petronius.”
“We lost Florius,” said Petro glumly. “He slipped the net somehow.”
“We can search for him. Any ideas?”
“He may change his plans now we have been so close to him, but he spoke of going back to Italy. We had the river sealed tonight. Nothing was allowed to move on the water. He cannot have sailed yet.”
Maia looked surprised. “Oh, a ship did go downstream, Lucius, just before ours landed here. It was carrying no lights, but showed up in the flares we had. The captain cursed because he nearly ran into it.”
Petronius swore and Flavius Hilaris growled. “These gangsters have both cheek and incredible influence—”
“Money,” stated Petro, explaining how they managed it.
Hilaris considered whether to order a pursuit, but it was too late and too dark. Every creek, beach, and landing stage from here to the great northern ocean would be scoured tomorrow.
“One ship?” Petro checked with Maia. She nodded. “Can you describe it?”
“Just a ship. Quite big. Loads of cargo lashed on its deck, as far as I could see in the dark. It had oars and a mast, but just came gliding silently.”
“No chance you know what the vessel was called?”
My sister smiled at her heartthrob teasingly. “No. But you should talk to Marius. My elder son,” she explained blithely to the procurator, “so loved the experience of sailing. I am very grateful that you made it possible. Marius has been collecting ships’ names in a special note tablet . . .”
Petronius biffed her for stringing him along, then he and the procurator smiled hopefully. Flavius Hilaris chuckled. “I’ll signal across to Gaul. He may berth there and go overland, or he may go around Iberia by sea. But by the time that ship hits Italy, every port on the coast will be on notice.”
“Good luck, then.” Petronius was sanguine. “But I’m afraid you need to alert every harbor in the Mediterranean. Florius has to maintain his links with Italy; his real fortune is tied up in his wife. But he’ll have made enough here to survive as a renegade for a long time . . . He could go anywhere.” Petro was taking it fairly well. “One day he will come back to us, and I’ll be there waiting.”
“I have every faith in that,” Hilaris assured him quietly.
Petronius Longus gazed downriver. “He is out there. I’ll get him in the end.”
As a courtesy we had to wait while Flavius Hilaris checked the condition of his damaged boat, then spoke to the soldiers. Petro and Maia sat together on a bollard, intertwined.
I grumbled to Helena, “I’m not sure I can face a thousand-mile journey home, with those two acting like star-struck teenagers.”
“Be glad for them. Anyway, they’ll have to be discreet with four nosy children watching.”
I was none too sure. They were lost in each other; they didn’t care.
The soldiers had now removed the barriers, so members of the public could come and go at will. Numbers had been attracted here by the military activity. A vagrant, one of the wide-eyed hopefuls who congregated in this frontier province, wandered up and decided I was a suitable friend for a man of his mad status. “Where are you from, Legate?”
“Rome.”
He gazed at me, from some vague world of his own.
“Italy,” I said. The need for explanation grated, even though I knew he was a derelict. He was filthy and showed signs of disease, but acted as if he recognized a like soul in me.
“That Rome!” murmured the vagrant wistfully. “I could go to Rome.” He would never go to Rome. He had never wanted to.
“The best,” I agreed.
He had made me think of Italy. I went across to Helena and hugged her. I wanted to go back to the residence and see my two daughters. Then, as soon as possible, I wanted to go home.