Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis Page A

eating house on the shore. He recommended the shellfish pottage with saffron sauce.

    'A melange of shellfish,' I commented cautiously, 'at a tavern with no nameboard, in a strange port, is a risk my mother taught me to avoid! What else do they do?'

    'Shellfish pottage - without the saffron!'

    He grinned. He had a perfectly straight nose which was attached to his face at an unfortunate angle of thirty degrees. His left side had the uptwitched eyebrow of a bright, comical fellow, and his right the down-jerked mouth of a moody clown. Both halves of his face were fairly presentable; he just lost ground on the composite effect. His two profiles were so different I felt compelled to stare at him, as though he were deformed.

    We both ordered pottage, with. Life's short enough anyway. May as well drink deep and die in style.

    I paid for a flagon while my new friend called up side dishes; a trug of bread, a saucer of olives, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce salad, whitebait, sunflower seeds, gherkins, slices of cold sausage, and so on. Having fixed a few nibbles, we introduced ourselves.

    'Laesus.'

    'Falco.'

    'Captain of the Sea Scorpion, out of Tarentum. I used to do the Alexandria run, but I gave it up for shorter hops with fewer storms. I'm in Croton to meet someone.'

    'I've ridden down from Rome. Arrived today.'

    'What brings you to Bruttium?'

    'Whatever it was, it now looks like a bad mistake!'

    We raised our cups and tackled the hors-d'oeuvres. 'You never mentioned what you do, Falco.'

    'Quite right.' I broke off some bread from a circular loaf, then concentrated on cleaning an olive stone between my front teeth. 'I never mentioned it!'

    I spat out the stone. I was not so discourteous as to keep secrets from a fellow who had saved my life; Laesus knew I was teasing. We pretended to let it drop.

    The place we had come to was surprisingly busy for midafternoon. Seafront canteens are often like that, catering for sailors who have no idea of time. Some customers were drinking at the counter indoors but most were packed onto benches in the open air, like us patiently waiting for their food.

    I told Laesus that in my experience quayside tavernas are like that too; you sit for hours imagining they are filleting a fresh-caught red mullet just for you. The real truth is: the cook is a lackadaisical noddy who has disappeared on some errand for his brother-in-law; on his way back he quarrels with a girl he owes money to, then stops to see a dogfight before helping along a game of soldiers at a rival restaurant. He arrives in a filthy temper half-way through the afternoon, warms up a sickly bumper-fish in yesterday's rascasse broth and hurls in some mussels which he can't be bothered to clean, then an hour later you heave up your dinner into the harbour because you drank far too much while you were waiting for the cook.

    'Console yourself, Laesus: a meal on a quayside never stays around long enough to poison you!'

    He just smiled. Sailors get used to listening to strangers fantasies.

    Our pottage came. It was good, in a hearty, harboury way. I had just mastered filtering it across my tongue to field the chunks of crab claw, when Laesus niggled slyly, 'Since you seem shy of telling me, I'll guess... You look like a spy.'

    I was hurt. 'I thought I looked like a priest!'

    'Falco, you look like a spy who's disguised as a priest!' I sighed, and we drank some more wine.

    My new friend Laesus was a queer phenomenon. In a place where I had no reason to feel confidence in anyone, he seemed utterly trustworthy. Both his eyes were black and beady like a robin's. He always kept his sailor's hat on. It had a round, felted crown surrounded by a twirling brim so that it looked like an upturned field mushroom.

    The company thinned out. We were left with two old seamen and a few travellers who, like me, had fled for the sleepy port. Plus a trio of young ladies called Gaia, Ipsyphille and Merioe, with faded personalities and low-slung frocks,