I asked if he wanted to hire me to investigate. He said no. Partly, that was a relief. I was reluctant to do country work. Especially in the Pontine Marshes. That’s suicide.

This would not have done for me, yet I did understand why Sextus Silanus was letting the mystery rest. He was practical. How many times had I advised clients to take such a sensible route (and how many had ignored me)?

Regarding the money Pa owed, we agreed that I would hand it over and call the account closed. Silanus would bank the cash at the Temple of Juno Sospes, until enough time passed for him to feel he could have it himself. Realistically, that would be soon. One glance at all the children he was bringing up said it. And I did not blame him.

He came out to collect the money. Shooing his freckled infants off the cart, he confirmed he was a single-handed parent; he had six under fourteen.

I bought a load of his fine terracotta wares. It would pay a few food bills for him, and anyway I liked the stuff. Albia helped me choose.

As Silanus waved us off, he asked, with a desperation I could almost forgive, ‘Your daughter seems a very nice young lady—Does she have a husband, Falco?’

‘Get lost!’ Albia and I roared in unison.

Bad timing, Silanus.

11

This strange disappearance of two respectable art dealers continued to haunt me. Driving allows you time to muse. Still, I had concerns of my own. If Silanus wanted to abandon hope, it was depressing, but his own affair. I went on my way, relieved of the cash and freed up to sell the statues. The curious episode was over.

Or was it? I should have known better.

The Via Appia is a legendary highway built four hundred years ago by Appius Claudius. It runs down across the Pontine Marshes, straight as a javelin for fifty miles between Rome and Tarracina. That entails causeways where it crosses swamps, but the northern part is wide, well-paved and, if your donkey can summon the energy, pleasantly fast. I had hired a decent working beast; she didn’t bite or lie down in the gutter, though nor did she exert herself. We trickled sedately down a sliproad and hit the famous highway just before it climbed the Alban Hills, passing Lakes Nemi and Albanus.

Giving a friendly lecture to Albia (who barely responded) I had to admit that Appius, a great builder who also constructed the first Roman aqueduct, was better than average, for a patrician. As a freeborn city boy, I found some of his policies questionable—allowing the sons of manumitted slaves to enter the Senate and extending the vote to rural folk who owned no land. Still, Appius Claudius also published the law, stopping the priests from keeping it as their private mystery. That made him a patron of informers.