Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

life, and where to buy a hock of Spanish ham. He was captain of the watch, but we never let that interfere with being friends.

    I squeezed in alongside. The heat felt strong enough to melt the marrow in our bones. We scanned the crowd in case there was a mad-eyed arsonist still lurking at the scene.

    ‘Didius Falco,' Petronius murmured, 'always first back into barracks, hogging the fire?' We had both done army service in the bitter north: five years in the Second Augustan Legion in Britain. We had spent half our time on the frontier, and the rest on forced marches or camped out in the field. When we came home we had both sworn we would never feel warm again. Petronius married; he decided it helped. Various eager young ladies had tried to assist me the same way, but I had fended them off.

    'Been visiting your girlfriend?'

    'Which?' I grinned. I knew which. For at least the past fortnight there had only been one. I set aside my vivid recollection of offending her this evening. 'What highly avoidable accident happened here, Petro?

    'Usual fiasco. Temple acolytes off playing dice in a bar down the street; an incense burner left smouldering.'
    'Casualties?'

    'Doubt it; the doors are locked -' Petronius Longus glanced at me, saw from my face there was a reason for the question, then turned back to the temple with a heavy groan.

    We were helpless. Even if his men butt those studded double doors with a battering ram, the interior would explode into a fireball. Flames were already flickering high on the roof. Black smoke with a worrying smell was gusting half-way to the river. Out here in the alley the heat was making our faces shine like glass. No one could survive inside.

    The doors were still standing, and still locked, when the roof-timbers caved in.

    Someone finally rooted out the fire brigade from a chophouse to douse the shell of the building with buckets. They had to find a working fountain first, and it was the usual ham-fisted effort when they did. Petronius had dispersed most of the crowd, though a few characters with fierce wives waiting at home hung on here for the peace. We hooked grappling irons onto one of the doors and dragged its scorched timbers outwards with an ear-splitting screech; a solidified torso, presumably human, lay huddled just inside. A professional priest who had just arrived told us the molten amulet stuck to the breastbone looked not unlike one Curtius Longinus, the conspirator recalled by Vespasian, always wore.

    Longinus had been his house guest. The priest had dined with the man that evening; he turned away looking sick.

    Petronius Longus yanked a leather curtain over the charred nugget of flesh. I let him start the questioning while I went on looking round. ‘Do you normally lock the doors at night?' he challenged, coughing in the smoke.

    'Why should we lock up?' The priest of Hercules had a healthy black beard; he was probably ten years older than us but looked hard as the Citadel Wall. You would only play handball with this stalwart cove if he picked you to play in his own team. ‘We're not the Temple of Jupiter, crammed with captured treasure, or the Temple of Saturn Treasury. Some shrines have to be shut up at dusk to stop vagrants creeping in, but, watch captain, not ours!'

    I could see why. Apart from the fact gruff old Hercules Gaditanus probably liked vagrants, there was nowhere to squat in comfort and nothing to steal. It was just a brick- built closet no bigger than a storeroom on a farm.

    The terracotta statue of the god which had been laid low by a ton of falling roof tiles had a half-finished air that went with the rough-and-ready place. Even his priest had the famished look of a man who worked in a poor district, dealing all day with brain-battered boxers. Beneath the beard, his oriental face was handsome; he had great sad eyes, as if he knew his god was popular but not taken seriously.

    'Who was in charge?' Petronius continued wearily, still upset by the death. 'Did