One Virgin Too Many mdf-11 Read online

  "We can afford our own litter now," Helena ventured nervously as we drove past the Theatre of Pompey and rattled over the Agrippan Bridge. This was already further out of the city than I normally enjoyed tramping.

  "If you want a social life, we'll need one each."

  ***

  The house had tremendous potential. (Those deadly words!) Renovated-for it was suffering about twenty years of total neglect-it could end up truly beautiful. Airy rooms led from lofty corridors; attractive interior peristyle gardens separated pleasingly proportioned wings. There were good polychrome geometric mosaic floors in the principal rooms and hallways. Old-fashioned, slightly faded frescos posed interesting problems: whether to keep them or invest in more modern designs.

  "It had no bathhouse," Helena said. "There is a spring, luckily. I don't know how the previous owners managed. I thought it was essential to have our own facilities."

  I gulped. "Gloccus and Cotta?"

  "How did you guess?"

  "They sound likely candidates for a job that can easily go wrong. I don't see them here." I could, however, see their various piles of ladders, litter, and old lunch crusts. They also had a large trade plate advertising their services, which had pushed over the welcoming herm at the entrance gate. No doubt they would reerect Hermes for us before they finally left.

  I jest. The situation was clear to me. These were, without question, boys who left a trail of destruction in their wake. Snagging, in this contract, would mean employing a major contractor to put right everything that these smaller folk had done wrong-and all they had ruined which they should never have touched. There was nothing new or surprising in this situation. It is carefully worked out in the builders' guild. It is how they perpetuate their craft. Every time one comes in and ruins your home, the next in the chain is guaranteed work. Don't try to escape. They know every trick the luckless householder can pull. They are gods. Just leave them to get on with it.

  "Gloccus and Cotta are never here," Helena replied in a taut voice. "That, I am forced to admit, is their big disadvantage. If I tell you I bought this house before we went to Africa-"

  I smiled gently. "We went in early April, didn't we? We were there nearly two months?"

  "Gloccus and Cotta were supposed to build the bathhouse while we were away. It was a simple construction on a clean site and they had told me they were free to program it in. It was to take twenty days."

  "So what happened, fruit?" She was so dismal it was easy to be kind to her; I could wind her up later, once she had provided the ammunition.

  "I expect you can imagine." She knew how I was playing this. Helena, who was a stalwart girl, took a deep breath and recounted the odyssey: "They were late starting; their previous contract overran. They have to keep returning to Rome for more materials-disappearing for the rest of the day. They need money in advance, but if you pay them up front as a courtesy they take advantage and vanish again. I gave them a clear list of what I wanted, but every item they supply is different from what I chose. They have broken the white marble bowl I ordered specially from Greece; they have lost half the tesserae for the hot-room floor-after the first half were firmly laid, of course, so the rest cannot now be matched. They drink; they gamble, and then fight over the results. If I come here to work on other parts of the house, they interrupt me constantly, either asking for refreshments or announcing that I have a problem with the design that they did not foresee… Do stop laughing."

  "What's the fuss about?" I was now openly doubled up with mirth. "These seem like prime delights from the world of contracting-and what's more, Pa found them!"

  "Don't mention your father!"

  "Sorry." I took a grip. "We can sort this."

  Helena was beginning to show her panic and despair. "Marcus, I cannot get anywhere with them! Every time I take them to task, they just admit they have let me down in an intolerable fashion, apologize cringingly, promise to apply themselves diligently from now on-then vanish from sight again."

  I had caught her eye. Relief at involving me was softening her tragedy. It was a mess, but now she could cry over it into my tunic braid. Just knowing that she could admit the truth to me was making her brave. "Good thing you live with a man who never beats you, Helena."

  "Oh, I am grateful for that. I would be happy if you restricted any teasing too."

  "Ah, no chance, sweetheart."

  "So I thought."

  Looking rueful, she let me caress her flushed cheek. She was wearing a dark red dress with a bevy of bracelets to hide her forearm, scarred where a scorpion had bitten her outside Palmyra. Due to our early start that morning her fine dark hair was simply tucked in the neck of her tunic; I reached around and started pulling it loose. More relaxed, Helena leaned her head against my hand. I gathered her close and turned her around to survey the property.

  It was the hour of the morning when the sun's heat first begins to strengthen as it fires up for a blazing day. We gazed at the fine two-storied house, with its satisfying rhythms of repeated arched colonnades below shuttered windows on the upper floors. The exterior facade was regular, and so fairly plain, with small red turrets on each corner and a porch with low steps and two thin pillars to break up the frontage.

  A nervous white dove fluttered onto the pantiles; probably it had nested messily up in the warm roof space, though the roof in fact looked sound.

  The grounds, in which the famous bathhouse was not being built, hosted a terrace with stone pines and cypresses, unkempt topiary dotted through a sloped area, and near the house the usual box hedges and trellises. Graveled paths, with most of the gravel missing, led in a determined way from gate to house and then wandered about the gardens, pausing now at the detached site of what Helena had planned as the bathhouse. What the property lacked in pools and fountains would provide plenty of scope for a schemer like me to design and install them (and tear them out again after a child fell in). It was very peaceful here.

  I twisted my belt around so the buckle would not dig into Helena as I held her tight against me, looking over her shoulder and nuzzling her neck. "Tell me the story."

  She sighed. "I liked it as soon as I saw it," she said, after a moment, speaking quietly and with the direct honesty I had always adored in her dealings with me. "I bought it for you. I thought it would delight you. I thought we would enjoy living here as a family. It was in decent condition, yet there was plenty we could do to make improvements in our own taste when we had time and the inclination. But I see it is a disaster. You cannot be so far from Rome."

  "Hmm." I liked it too. I understood just what had made Helena choose this place.

  "I can sell it again, I suppose. Build the bathhouse, then pass it on as a 'newly renovated home of character-fine views and own baths.' Somebody else can discover that Gloccus and Cotta have failed to install a working soakaway."

  "And that the new hypocaust leaks smoke."

  Helena squirmed around to look at me in horror. "Oh no! How can you tell?"

  I shook my head sadly. "When boneheads like Gloccus and Cotta install them, they always do, love. And they will leave the wall flues blocked up with rubble-and quite inaccessible-"

  "No!"

  "As sure as squirrels eat nuts."

  She covered her face and groaned. "I can already see the scroll with the new owner's compensation claim."

  I was laughing again. "I love you."

  "Still?" Agitated, Helena broke my hold on her and stepped back. "Thank you very much-but that's avoiding the issue, Marcus."

  I caught her slender hands in mine. "Don't sell it yet."

  "I have to."

  "We'll get it right first." This suddenly seemed urgent. "Don't jump too quickly. There's no need to-"

  "We have to live somewhere, Marcus. We need space for a nursemaid for Julia, and help in the house-"

  "Whereas this house needs a whole cohort of slaves; you would have to send a troop down into Rome every day just to shop at the markets-I like it. I want you to keep it wh
ile we consider what to do."

  Her chin came up. "I should have asked you first."

  I looked around again at the gracious house in its sun-drenched grounds, overlooked by the worried white dove who could see we were people to reckon with. Somehow, it put me in a tolerant mood. "That's all right."

  "Most men would say I should have consulted you," Helena commented quietly.

  "Then they know nothing." I meant that.

  "Nothing I suggest ever frightens you, or makes you lose your temper. You let me do whatever I like." She sounded quite puzzled, though she had known me long enough not to feel surprise.

  Doing what she liked had brought her to live with me. Doing what she liked had led us on greater adventures than most men ever share with their dull wives.

  I winked at her. "Just so long as what you like is what you do with me."

  ***

  We stayed all day on the Janiculan. We walked around taking measurements and making notes. I made loose doors secure; Helena swept out rubbish. We talked and laughed a lot. If we were selling the place, it was theoretically a waste of our time. We did not see it that way.

  Gloccus and Cotta, the keen bathhouse contractors, never showed.

  XXIV

  I went over to Ma's house to tell her what I thought about the new house. (Helena came too, to hear what I said.) Trouble was waiting: the damned lodger was at home.

  "Don't make a noise! Anacrites is off-color. The poor thing is having a wee snooze."

  That would have been fine, but warning us woke him up. He emerged eagerly, knowing that I would rather have left without seeing him.

  "Falco!"

  "Oh look; every perfect day has its low point, Helena."

  "Marcus, you're so rude! Good evening, Anacrites. I am sorry to hear that your wounds have been troubling you."

  He did look drawn. He had been suffering from a near-deadly head blow when he went out to Tripolitania, and the sword slashes he took while playing the fool in the arena were a further hindrance to his recovery. He had lost far too much blood in Lepcis; it had taken me hours to bind him up, and all through the trip home I had expected to find myself chucking his corpse over the side of the ship. Well, a boy can hope.

  Ma fussed around him now while he tried to look brave. He managed; I was the one who nearly threw up.

  He had forced himself to come off his couch still in his siesta wear-a bedraggled gray tunic and battered old slippers like something Nux might bring me as a treat. It was far from Anacrites' normal sleek gear: a hideous glimpse of the man behind the public persona, as unsuitable as a domesticated lynx. I felt embarrassed being in the same room as him.

  He scratched his ear, then beamed. "How is the new house?"

  I would have given a good chest of gold to prevent him knowing my potential new address. "Don't tell me you had your sordid operatives tail us there?"

  "No need. Your mother always keeps me up to date." I bet the bastard knew about the house before I did. Loyal to Helena, I bit that back.

  Ma was bringing him invalid broth. At least that meant we all got some. It was stuffed with the vegetables she had pinched from the market garden yesterday.

  "I am so well looked after here!" Anacrites exclaimed complacently.

  I gritted my teeth.

  "Maia was here today," said Ma, as I wielded my spoon morosely. I saw Anacrites take an interest. Perhaps he was just being polite to his landlady. Perhaps he wanted to upset me. Perhaps he did have an eye on my newly available sister. (Dear gods!) Ma pursed her lips. "I heard all about this plan you cooked up with your confederate."

  I decided not to mention that buying the tailor's business was my hated confederate's plan. My mother had guessed, I could tell. Whether she also knew it was Pa's money buying it for Maia I dared not even contemplate.

  "It seems an ideal solution." Helena backed me up firmly. "Maia needs an occupation. Tailoring is what she knows, and she will thrive on the responsibility."

  "I'm sure!" said Ma, sniffing. Anacrites was keeping quiet in such a tactful way I could have rammed his broth spoon down his throat. "Anyway," my mother went on with great satisfaction, "nothing may come of it."

  "It's all fixed, as far as I know, Ma."

  "No. Maia refused to agree unless she was given time to consider it. The contract was not signed."

  I put down my spoon. "Well, I tried. The children need a future. She ought to consider that."

  Ma relented. She was a fierce defender of her grandchildren. "Oh, she's intending to do it. She just wanted to make it clear she does not jump when your father orders it."

  It was so rare for my mother to mention my father that we all fell quiet. This really was embarrassing. Helena kicked me under the table, as a signal for us to leave.

  "I say, Marcus." Anacrites interrupted the awkward silence suddenly. "I did find out what that lad you sent was asking."

  I replaced my backside on the bench from which I had lifted it tentatively. "Someone I sent? What lad?"

  "Camillus, what's his name?"

  I glanced at Helena. "I know two lads called Camillus. Camillus Justinus helped me rescue you from your due fate in Lepcis Magna-Anacrites, I presume not even you are so ungrateful as to forget him-"

  "No, no. The other, this must be."

  "Aelianus," Helena said coldly. Anacrites looked disconcerted. He seemed unaware that both Camilli were Helena's younger brothers and that he himself had actually cultivated Aelianus as a useful contact once. His head wound had affected the patterns of his memory.

  I was annoyed. "I never sent him or anyone else to see you, Anacrites."

  "Oh! He said you did."

  "Playing at mystery men. Have you forgotten you do know him? For some reason you and he were cuddled up like long-lost cronies last year at that dinner for the olive oil producers-the night you took your big crack on the head."

  Now Anacrites had definitely lost his bumptiousness. He chewed his lower lip. I had established in previous discussions that he remembered nothing about the evening he was battered. This troubled him. It was rather pathetic. For a man whose career involved knowing more about other people than they chose to tell even their mistresses and doctors, losing part of his own memory was a terrible shock. He tried not to show it, but I knew he must lie awake at night, sweating over the missing days of his life.

  I had not been too cruel. He knew something about that night, because I had told him: he had been found unconscious, was rescued by me and taken to a safe house-Ma's-where he lay semi-comatose for weeks while she nursed him. But for her, he would be dead. You could say-though I was carefully too polite to do it-he also owed his life to me. I had made sure his jealous rival at the Palace, Claudius Laeta, could not find him and help him into Hades. I had even tracked down those responsible for attacking him and, while Anacrites still lay helpless, I had brought them to justice. He never thanked me much for that.

  "So I know him," mused Anacrites, struggling to recover some feel for the past contact.

  "You had been talking to him about what was going wrong in Baetica." Helena took pity on him. "At the time my brother had been living there, working with the provincial governor. He was only a passing contact of yours. You cannot be expected to recall it particularly."

  "He didn't remind me." Anacrites still had a dark, disturbed look. He had held a discussion with a man who failed to disclose their previous relationship. There must seem a frightening lack of logic in that. I knew the reason, as it happened: Aelianus wanted to cover up a serious error of judgment on his own part. While delivering a document to the intelligence chief, he had let it fall into the wrong hands and be mangled. Anacrites had never found out, but once he saw that the Chief Spy had forgotten him, Aelianus would have happily played the stranger.

  "Young tease!" I let Anacrites see me smirking. "He's playing games," I condescended to explain. "I imagine he told you that one of the Arval Brethren has died in ghastly circumstances. Aelianus is annoying the cult by looking
for a conspiracy."

  The conspiracy might be real, but if so I was annoyed that the young fool had alerted Anacrites. Aelianus and I were playing this game-and the spy would have to ask very nicely indeed before I let him join in.

  "So what did Aelianus want?" Helena put to him.

  "A name."

  "Really?"

  "Stop acting, Falco," Anacrites snorted. He was Chief Spy, as I had found out when we worked on the Census, because he did have some discernment.

  I grinned and gave way. "All right, partner. I suppose he asked if you know who the dead Arval Brother is?"

  "Right."

  "You have an identification?"

  "None, when Aelianus raised it. The secretive Brethren had succeeded in keeping their loss under wraps. I was impressed!" he admitted, for once mocking himself gently.

  "And did you and your cunning trackers then find out?"

  "Of course." Smug bastard.

  "Well then?"

  "The dead man was called Ventidius Silanus." I had never heard of him. "Mean anything?" prompted Anacrites, warily watching me.

  I decided against bluff. I leaned back and threw open my hands frankly. "It means absolutely nix."

  It was his turn to grin. "Same here," he confessed, and he too gave every appearance of speaking with a rare burst of honesty.

  XXV

  Rome was at her best. Warm stone, limpid fountains, swifts screaming at roof height; a resonance in the evening light that no other city I have ever visited seems to possess.

  We had returned the mule cart to the hiring stable, so we were now on foot. As Helena and I walked home from Ma's house, both thinking in silence about our new Janiculan property, the streets on the Aventine remained lively without yet becoming dangerous. It was still light enough and hot enough for the day's commercial and domestic activities to be continuing, while the nighttime whores and housebreakers had hardly begun to swarm. Even narrow alleyways were almost safe.