The po-faced scribe from Hadrumetum whom I had met at the

proconsular palace would be able to cope with any decisions the quaestor was supposed to put his name to.

I served Quadratus more wine. My own cup still sat brimful on the balustrade. "What's in your remit?" He shrugged vaguely. These lads are never sent to their provinces with a proper brief; I summarized the quaestor's role for him: "Apart from deputizing for the proconsul in the law courts, there's collection of property taxes, provincial poll tax, port taxes, inheritance tax, and the state percentage on manumission of slaves. Hispania's huge. Baetica may not be the biggest province, but it's the richest and most populous. The sums you oversee must be significant."

"It's not real money, though."

I disagreed. "It's real enough to the merchants and heads of household who have to cough up!"

"Oh it all comes out of their budget... From my point of view it's just figures. I'm not obliged to get my hands dirty counting coins."

I refrained from saying I was surprised he could even count. "You may never touch the dosh, but you've been entrusted with a full range of headaches: the collecting disbursing safeguarding, managing and controlling of public funds.'"

Quadratus was taking the flippant line. "I suppose the records will come to me and I'll approve them—or I'll alter them if they don't fit," he giggled. He showed no sense of responsibility. I was struck by the horrific possibilities for embezzlement. "Let's face it, Falco—I have a title and a seal, but in reality I'm impotent. I can't alter the way things are run. Rome is fully aware of that."

"You mean because your stint in the post is only a year?"

He looked surprised. "No, because that's just how things are."

This was the rotten side of government. Enormous power was placed at the disposal of an untried, overconfident young man. His only superior here was the hard-pressed governor who had a full complement of legislative and diplomatic work himself. If the salaried officials who really ran the provinces were corrupt, or if they simply lost heart, here was an outpost of the Empire which could fall apart. With a brash and completely unprepared master placed over them, who could blame them if they did lose heart?

Something like that had happened in Britain over a decade earlier. I was there. I knew. The Icenian Revolt was brought about by a combination of indifferent politicians, overbearing armed forces and ill-judged financial control. This had alienated the local populace, with results that were sheer murder. Ironically, a major catalyst for trouble had been the sudden withdrawal of loans by Seneca—the big name from Corduba.

"I see what they mean about you," Quadratus said suddenly. I wondered who "they" were, who had been briefing him about me. He wanted to know how good I really was at my job—and how dangerous.

I quirked up an eyebrow, enjoying his unease as he went on, "You sit drinking your wine just as pleasantly as anyone. But somehow I don't reckon you're thinking 'This is a palatable vintage, if a little sweet.' You're in another world, Falco."

"The wine has its moments. Baetica suffers from too much wind from the south; it troubles the grapes."

"Jove, you know everything! I do admire that. I really do—" He really did. "You're a complete professional. That's something I'd like to emulate." He might—but not if it meant he had to work on my pay, eating gritty bread and paying too much rent for a hovel in a lousy tenement.

"You just have to be thorough." I couldn't be bothered with his sham flattery, or his ignorance of conditions in the real world.

"So what's on your mind, Falco?"

"Nothing changes," I said. "Lessons are constantly put before us—and are never learned."

Quadratus was still game, though his speech was becoming slow. I had drunk much less. I had no taste for it. I had lost my taste for philosophy too.

Below in the garden dim figures rushed about, engaged in some dubious form of hide-and-seek. It required neither skill in the chase nor subtlety in claiming the prize. I watched for a moment, feeling my age, then turned back to the quaestor. "So what, Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus, are you intending to do as quaestor to prevent the formation of an oil cartel in Baetica?"

"Is there one?" he asked me, suddenly as wide-eyed as the second-rate virgins who were squealing among the clipped myrtles on the terraces below.

THIRTY-EIGHT

I stood up to leave. I clapped his shoulder, and handed him the jug of wine. "Enjoy your evening."

"What cartel?" he slurred, much too solemnly.

"The one that can't possibly exist in this respectable province where the businessmen are so ethical and the officials perform their duties to the highest standards of probity!"

I stepped back into the heated room indoors. There was wine everywhere. The illustrious Spunky and his cronies were roaring with laughter, looking shiny and much redder in the face. They had reached the happy stage of dying with mirth at their own silliness. Marius Optatus had disappeared somewhere. I didn't blame him, though since we were sharing a carriage it was somewhat inconvenient. He had probably found a bailiff and was discussing the fine details of making chestnut withy baskets. His interests were so practical.

"Grand party!" I applauded my host. He looked pleased. "Is your sister here?"

"Locked in her bedroom pretending not to know it's going on!

Maybe Aelia Annaea would welcome some refined masculine company. It had to be worth a try.

When I clambered over the revelers and out into the corridor, I left behind whoops of determined foolishness. I had noticed one poor soul already lying prone beside a cabinet of curios with his eyes tightly closed in misery. His capacity must be no bigger than a gnat's. By my reckoning they were all less than an hour from being sick over the balcony. There would be one or two who could not crawl that far. It boded ill for my host's father's porphyry vases and his silk-covered ivory-ended reading couch. His collected works of Greek men of letters had already been well trampled by flailing boots and his Egyptian carpet was being rolled up to make a swat in a game of "Human Fly."

Sticking my thumbs in my belt I moved carefully through the groups of rich children dangerously rollicking. This was not an occasion to reassure a father whose first offspring was only weeks from birth. Annaeus Maximus could have picked a better month to visit his Gades farms.

As I rather expected I learned nothing else that helped my mission, only that the town house of the Annaei covered two floors, was exquisite though slightly old-fashioned in decor, and possessed every amenity. I found a large number of beautifully appointed bedrooms, some occupied, though not by people who wanted my staid company. Becoming morose, I wandered down a staircase, stepping over various young ladies without partners who were sitting on the marble treads getting piles while they bemoaned the stupidity of Corduban boys. I concurred with their view, though perhaps not for the same reasons; what's more I had my doubts about some of the girls.

The ground floor comprised the normal public rooms and peristyles of a large, showy home. The rude huts of their forefathers had been transformed by the modern Annaei into high temples where they could act as patrons to the less well-off. It was meant to impress; I allowed it a few astonished gasps.

There was a full bathhouse suite, where some luckier young ladies were being repeatedly thrown by young men into the heated swimming pool; they squealed a lot then struggled out and ran back to be thrown in again. No one had drowned yet. In the attached ball-park a lively group thought it good fun to dress up a nannygoat in a garland of flowers and the robes which the important householder wore when he officiated as a priest. I greeted them serenely, then passed on into the covered arcade which led to the garden area.