Shadows in Bronze: A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries)
Lindsey Davis
Language: English
Pages: 464
ISBN: 0312614233
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"Some men are born lucky, others are called Didius Falco."
It's the first century CE in Rome and informer and occasional imperial agent Marcus Didius Falco is miserable. The high-born woman he fell in love with, Helena Justina, has broken off their stormy, impossible affair. So when Emperor Vespasian assigns Falco a task that will take him out of Rome, he can't wait. Disguised as vacationer in the company of his comrade Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine Watch, Falco travels south to Neapolis, Capreae and Pompeii where he discovers a conspiracy involving the Egyptian grain shipment to Rome. He also stumbles across Helena Justina, conveniently also on a trip out of town, who might, unwittingly, be enmeshed in this dangerous, treasonous scheme.
Lindsey Davis' Shadows in Bronze is historical mystery at its best.
Cerberus. Don’t ask how I know.’ He accepted it more readily than Helena did. I parted from them tersely, making it plain I had to work. I rejoined Anacrites, to wait outside the Emperor’s room with that tension no one quite loses when visiting a highly important man; being the bugs in favour can easily change. Anacrites groomed a fingernail between his teeth. I felt dismal. Vespasian liked me. He usually showed it by confronting me with impossible tasks for which I earned hardly any cash.
Marcellus by his ex-wife—’ I was furious to see my private information about Helena being paraded, but the Emperor leapt in first: ‘Leave the Camillus girl out of it!’ (I had not told Anacrites Vespasian and Helena’s father were on such friendly terms; he had not asked.) ‘Very good, sir.’ The spy adjusted his tone. ‘After Nero, new Emperors rattled out like barroom dice; I imagine these misguided souls underestimated your staying power—’ ‘They want a snob with fancy ancestors!’ Vespasian
all the way. Something about her predicament aroused my fellow feeling; I too spent most of my life bleating and being led towards certain doom. There was nobody else in authority, so the senior suppliant consulted me. ‘Go home,’ I commanded, inventing cheerfully. ‘Sweep out your house with cypress twigs—’ ‘What about the goat?’ ‘This goat,’ I pronounced with dignity (thinking of tasty ribs, roasted in the open air with sea salt and wild sage), ‘is sacred to the Goddess Hera now. Leave her
time for a stroll with a lass. You never know when the demands of city life will provide another chance. You never know when the lass will agree. We came through the vineyards where the half-ripe green bunches were already bending boughs. Our road doubled back. As we turned into the next slow climb upwards we caught sight of the villa. In the riding range on the terrace, a man was exercising two horses, turn and turn about. ‘Are those racers? Is there a trainer?’ ‘Bryon – that’s him.’ She
just missed, and a squatter skewbald packhorse—’ ‘No,’ Bryon said tersely. He was right; they were not here. Yet the abruptness of his answer convinced me that at some time he had seen the two I meant. He marched me back to the colonnade then backed off, seeming both disappointed and relieved as Helena Justina, the young lady who was one of the family, greeted me with her sleepy, unperturbed smile. XLVII When I strode back to Helena with my happy harpist’s whistle, she had just been