The Princess and the Pirates(85)

“It’s a good thing you did. If you hadn’t been there, Gabinius might have gone ahead and killed me just to be rid of the annoyance. He could have claimed that he got there too late.”

Now as I went out to talk with them, I was fairly certain I had most of the facts. Milo sat with some scrolls and tablets in front of him. Gabinius looked supremely confident. Mallius looked bemused. I took a seat.

“This shouldn’t take long,” I said. “Then we can all get back to the festival. Aulus Gabinius, tell me why I should not charge you with murder and piracy and a number of other charges before a praetor’s court?”

“Furius Marcinus was tribune in the same year I was. He supported me in passing the lex Gabinia that gave Pompey his command of the whole sea to sweep it clean of pirates. In return, when I had my propraetorian command in Syria, I took him along as legate. When I agreed to put Ptolemy back on his throne, it was Marcinus I used to recruit the bulk of the mercenary army I took to Egypt.”

“That included recruiting among the aforementioned pirates, then settled in villages inland?”

“Right. After the war, when we set about collecting the enormous debt Ptolemy had incurred, several merchant organizations came to protest Ptolemy’s extortions. He was trying to raise the money from foreigners so he could keep the Egyptian population docile. Among these was the Holy Society of Dionysus. Rabirius had seized control of the frankincense trade, the most lucrative of the Ptolemaic monopolies.”

“Rabirius was trying to collect that debt, too,” I pointed out.

“For himself and his own cronies. I wanted to be sure that my own part, and that of my supporters, got paid back. To foil Rabirius, Ptolemy sent word to Ethiopia and Arabia Felix not to deliver the stuff while he had no control of it. This was unthinkable. The Society of Dionysus agreed to advance me the money to buy the incense and get it to them secretly somewhere other than Alexandria. Marcinus told me he had two acquaintances from Ostia: Nobilior the banker and Silvanus, a prominent politician, on Cyprus. Silvanus was an old friend of mine, and Cyprus was a perfect location. I gave Marcinus the job of setting up the route. It was then that I was called back to Rome to stand trial. This petty little exile resulted. Naturally, I decided to spend my exile on Cyprus. By the time I got here, the business was going along nicely.”

“I seized Harmodias’s books and clapped him into a storage shed under guard,” Milo reported. He picked up a scroll. “As I suspected, Pompey’s agents took only the triremes and the better equipment. They weren’t interested in the smaller ships. The first ships he turned over to Spurius, as he was called, were the penteconters. Then Spurius wanted the Liburnians as well. Nobilior brokered the deal, with Silvanus well-paid to look the other way.”

“Marcinus was an adventurous man,” Gabinius said, “not really suited to ordinary military duties and administrative work. At first, he used the penteconters. They were ideal for smuggling, at which he branched out far beyond our incense trade. Then that became too tame for him. He wanted to try his hand at piracy, and that called for real warships. I had nothing to do with that, I assure you. I advised Silvanus against all such dealings, but so much wealth so easily had is difficult for a man to pass up.”

“Then,” I said, “Rabirius got wind of what was happening and was very angry with his ‘friend’ Sergius Nobilior?”

“Yes. The trade was too big to keep hidden. Rabirius has agents everywhere. He gave Nobilior one chance: redeem himself by returning his profits to Rabirius and killing Silvanus with a fitting gesture. Otherwise Rabirius would ruin him with the Ostian bankers and the whole banking community. For a climber like Nobilior, that was death. I got word of it too late.”

“You didn’t scruple to keep employing Marcinus for your own smuggling.”

“Just for the one last cargo. And I advised him to get out of the business while he could, although you may not believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” I said. “By the way, what were you smuggling? Copper?”

His shaggy brows went up. “You must be brighter than I thought. Yes, it was copper. I’ve been investing my profits in copper right here at the source, where it’s cheap.”

“Copper? Mallius said. “Why smuggle copper? There is nothing illegal about the trade.”

“I am shipping it to my agent in Syria to be struck into coins to pay my troops when I get the eastern command. That had to be kept quiet.”

“I thought it might be something like that,” I said. “You are very confident.”