Graveyard of the Hesperides Page 17

  “So no prostitute, even if she is forced into it at a very young age, by other people, can ever repent, reinstate her good name or be forgiven by society?”

  Tiberius agreed dourly.

  *

  I knew better than to blame him for this. He acted as an instrument of government policy. If he refused the task, someone else would do it. I would rather he was checking the legality of market weights, but if an aedile had to be involved, better it was Manlius Faustus. He was straight. He had a charitable attitude.

  I bet there had always been different magistrates, men who exacted a trick when they registered a woman. Their free sample. “Checking that her price is value for money.” These men had a duty to protect the public from rip-offs, after all. They would claim they must test out the goods. Compared to the majority, mine was oddly innocent.

  I gave him a hug, to show I did not regard him as tainted. Then, without telling him my plans, I left him at the Hesperides while I went by myself to have a look around the district the Macedonians had mentioned, where both they and Menendra lived. From what they said, I too would soon feel soiled, merely from going there.

  XXXV

  Some people know Ad Gallinas Albas as the whimsical name of the elegant imperial Villa of Livia at Prima Porta. Supposedly an eagle soaring overhead once dropped a white hen in the empress’s lap, bearing a sprout of olive in its beak. Waste not, want not, so the great lady kept both, planting an olive grove and keeping a poultry farm, with the bonus that on occasions they presaged the deaths of emperors. So useful. If I ever have my own olive tree, I want it to wilt when the daggers are about to be plunged into Domitian.

  The poultry area by the Ten Traders may boast the same name, but it is as different as anything could be from the fine rural retreat on the Via Flaminia that was once the possession of Livia Augusta. Forget the desirable residential areas that did exist on the Viminal further on. Was Gallinae Albae ever a farm? If there had once been hens, they must have been hoarse, pox-ridden laying-fowl that produced soft-shelled eggs. Their eyes would weep, their lungs would clog with the foul seepage of diseases of the dirt. The human birds who lived in this sour valley bottom now, scrawny creatures pecking for clients, were little different.

  Not all the prostitutes were brought in from abroad. Not all were slaves. A few were freeborn women, lured here by want, vulnerable souls in distress who were so desperate they had to turn to vice. They disappeared from their former lives, in total thrall to their procurers.

  More often than you may want to believe, the people who controlled their daily acts were women. Many of those women had once been working girls too. They were callous; they felt no pity for the new generation. I suppose they were simply glad they themselves had grappled their way into a slightly better position. By then, abuse was all they knew. When perversion was not being imposed on them, they imposed it on someone else.

  I was coming to see this as Rufia’s way of life, and Menendra’s too. This pair, I decided, were power players in the sordid game.

  *

  I wished I had not gone to the White Chickens alone. It gave me a terrible sense of dread. The reason I knew all about what went on here was that thankfully brief period when I myself had been kidnapped by a brothel owner. It had only lasted a day, though it was the worst of my life. At the time I was a forlorn child, who believed his lie that he would take me to a safe place. But when he violently turned on me it was no surprise. Living on the streets had taught me what goes on.

  I would have given in and done whatever that man made me do, because I had no other recourse. No friends, no family, no home. At that time, to be wanted for his filthy purposes was better than not to be wanted at all. I could have pretended to myself that his lies were real. I could have spent the rest of my existence on earth in that dire condition.

  But Fortune offered one kind nod. Didius Falco and Helena Justina gave me a better life. At the end of this month they would see me married to a good man, and I knew they would both shed tears for my happiness, knowing their own part in it. They had come across a child in misery and instinctively plucked her from it. They never dwelt on their benevolence. But on my wedding day, they would be prouder than most parents.

  I felt troubled here, being reminded what they had saved me from. A deep-seated fear always lurked that my rescue was an illusion; security could be snatched away. Coming to this area, on top of my admissions to the Macedonians, unnerved me. As for them, I wished now that I had not taken them into my confidence. I hoped they never told anyone what I had said.

  As soon as I started looking, I knew nobody in the White Chickens brothels stood a chance of escaping to respectability. Ordinary people could walk down the Vicus Longus or the Vicus Patricius, the long highways that ran on either side of the Viminal Hill, and never notice what was here. Once you stopped, once you began to see it, the area was dire.

  There were entire tenements given over to brothels, each with the procuress either lolling outside on a wooden stool or just visible as she lurked indoors. Working women hung around on the streets, openly eyeing up potential customers, calling out invitations. Men lingered, hardly distinguishable, whether they were prospective clients or the sorry pimps and enforcers who were attached to the brothels.

  Suddenly I saw Chia. She was alone now and at once I hailed her. She greeted me with a wan smile on her childlike face. I went up to her and said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but in case you absolutely want an abortionist, the one in the Ten Traders is called Nona.” I could hardly forgive myself for telling her, but I pitied her position. “Ask at the bakery stall opposite the public facilities, Chia; the girls serving bread will direct you. They call her the wise woman.”

  “Have you—?”

  “No. Not me. I had to speak to her about my investigation.”

  Chia was perfectly open: “Thank you. I have to find someone. There is a person the brothel uses, but I don’t like her.”

  She asked what I was doing in the White Chickens. I said I was looking for my sister. I had to give a reason; a search for a runaway made sense. Chia was too immature to work out that I had another motive. She seemed to be heading to her room. As sweetly as my real sisters taking a girlfriend home for almond cakes, she offered to show me where she lived.

  *

  It was a full-scale brothel, reeking so much of dirt and lamp soot that after I left its smell would be ingrained in my hair, clothes and the very pores of my skin. Extending up for several stories, all completely occupied by working girls, the building was divided into many similar small, windowless rooms, so oil lamps were everywhere, some smoking langorously even by day.

  The place was better run than I expected. The accounts manager, on a high stool with a record tablet, could have been chief clerk in any respectable business. They had a hairdresser (who looked as though she probably served her turn on a pallet when required) and a boy with a water basin so clients could wash afterward. Maybe the girls could use that basin of his, though somehow I thought not. His towel looked as if it was used by everyone for days on end without being laundered. Even the boy himself had a used look. Men could certainly bugger him, probably without paying extra.

  Chia led me upstairs to her cubicle. On the way we passed other rooms, some with closed doors as they were in use, some open so visitors could see the wares on offer. Half-naked women were visible inside, most looking far from erotic, more like schoolgirls lolling in their bedrooms. I almost expected to see dolls and miniature farms on show, but I was a realist; these young people had probably never owned playthings as children. All they knew now were sex toys.

  House-proud whores had draped curtains across their doorways, some looped up with string tie-backs while they were waiting for a customer. Each had a painted sign above the door showing a couple (well it was usually a couple) engaged in whatever sexual position that woman performed. The variety made me blink. Each room had a sign dangling from a hook, giving the occupant’s name
and price, then “engaged” when she turned the tablet over. It was lunchtime now, so quite a few rooms had closed doors. I heard few cries of pleasure from within. Trade here must be a mechanical, laconic business.

  Chia’s little cubicle was dark, mean and as smelly as the rest. I suppose after a time the women got used to that notorious brothel odor. Inside, she had a basic single bed, covered with a threadbare blanket and graced with a lifeless pillow in a striped case. When she was in, the room was lit by one pottery oil lamp. Chia took it in order to light it from another in the dark corridor.

  I could then see that unlike my room or my sisters, this was not littered with clothes, shoes, scarves, cosmetics, jewelry boxes, pink glass perfume bottles shaped like birds, miniature statuette collections, musical instruments on which somebody had once had three lessons, scroll sets or vases. Chia’s cubicle had no clutter at all. At least that saved her being nagged to tidy it. I saw no evidence that this building was ever subjected to housework. The crud on the floors and door frames looked prehistoric.

  “So this is your little nest, Chia!”

  Again, she gave me that sad, wan smile. She had dark hair and soft eyes; the customers probably thought her a pretty one, though she was simply young. The skinny mite had tiny hands and baby fingers; she looked no more than fifteen, unformed and a little backward with it. I think she could see she broke my heart.

  “It’s all right,” she urged, as if reassuring me. “I’m used to it. They give me food and clothes. I have a job. The other girls are like a big family.”

  She spoke as if she thought herself lucky; she just had to stick with it.

  I sat beside her on her bed, trying not to imagine who else had been there or to notice what traces they had left behind. How could any man with self-respect come to a place like this—let alone carry out what ought to be an intimate act among such public squalor? “Do you do well, Chia?”

  “Oh yes,” she agreed seriously. “I look young. A lot of the men ask for that.”

  At this rate she would soon look older. Then how would she fare? “So do they treat you nicely?”

  “Some.”

  “And the rest?”

  She pulled a face, though seemed acquiescent. “They want to call me a naughty girl and punish me.” She saw my look. “Oh, it’s just a game, Flavia Albia. Close your eyes and forget it. Soon be over.” That must be what the pimp had told her.

  “So,” I said gently, “I am wondering about you. I am thinking, can you manage to escape being downtrodden? Will you one day grow into a force to be reckoned with, like Rufia at the Hesperides?” It was a ridiculous thought. She was so pallid, I knew the answer.

  “Or Menendra?” Giving me a sly look, Chia knew what my interest really was.

  “The elusive Lycian? Apart from issuing threats to all and sundry, I am still not clear what Menendra does. According to her she supplies bars, but it’s very vague what she supplies them with.”

  Chia seemed to be considering. We were friends now, special cronies for the moment. I did not trust it to last, but I might as well exploit it. “They didn’t want to tell you,” she said.

  Ah. One of those moments. An informer lives for this.

  “Your Macedonian friends? Didn’t want to tell me what, Chia darling?”

  “Menendra does go round and sells stuff to the cookshops. But I told you.” I raised my brows, puzzled. “She’s that one I said about.” Chia seemed surprised I had failed to grasp this. “She’s horrid. She scares me. That’s why I don’t want to go to her for help. It’s her this place uses for the girls—” She spelled it out for me, almost exasperated I was being dense about it. “Albia—she gets rid of babies.”

  XXXVI

  Chia was wanted. A large tanner came to her door. He seemed diffident, asking politely if she was busy at the moment or could she could “do” him? He was ordinary, almost likeable, though he did stink of his work.

  I left.

  *

  Before I thanked her for our chat and freed her to ply her trade with the tanner, the girl had told me how to find the cookshop where Menendra lodged. I came upon it easily enough, but when I went up the stairs at the side of the building, her door was firmly locked. She had a name sign on a hook, like those I had seen in the brothel, but when I turned it, the back was blank, no “engaged” notice. So people came to find her here, but not to fornicate.

  Retreating, I bought a pie from the busy cookshop. It was surprisingly good, given the area. That’s Rome for you.

  I walked slowly back to the Garden of the Hesperides, eating as I went. I could not help thinking what a wondrous treat it would once have been for me to eat a warm pie in the street. Once, when I was homeless in dreary Londinium.

  Today the weather was mixed, with small clouds scudding in between gladdening bursts of sunlight. The temperature was cooler than earlier in the week, so walking about was more comfortable. Still, this was the Golden City, with its climate so different from the one I grew up with: Rome, where you could go bare-armed even while the sun was hidden. Rome, where my family all laughed at me because if the sun peeked out in December, I would throw off my cloak, raise my face to the warmth and start smiling …

  Tiberius, still at the bar, caught me brushing pastry crumbs from my lips. Since he looked envious, I walked over to the Brown Toad to ask if they could supply a bowl of their stew for him. Nobody was about. People could walk past and not be accosted by the transvestites. Any lunchtime clientele had gone. I went inside, looking for the lethargic waitress. She wasn’t there, but I found an aged woman washing out food bowls; she must be the granny who cooked up the daily cauldron.

  “Where is the girl?”

  “Having a lie-down.” I interpreted that the lewd way. Maybe I had spent too much time investigating bars.

  “Any of your meaty hot pot left? I have a hungry man to feed over the road.” I did not mention that he was an aedile who ought to enforce the pulses-only rule. Not knowing who I wanted it for, she obligingly scraped the last of it out of her cauldron.

  I grinned. “If you’re like my old gran on the Aventine, you’re pleased to see the clean bottom of the pot.”

  She was like my old gran all right. Beaming, she let me run a finger around the inside of the cauldron, cleaning up the last of the gravy. I thought I had better try some, since I had not tasted this famous broth when the Macedonians had lunch on me. Anyway, I had a long history of licking out cooking pots. All my family liked to do it; when a bunch of us gathered in a kitchen, there could be squabbles.

  I congratulated her on the flavor. I was polite; besides, it really was good. I liked remembering that eating places were supposed to be for eating in.

  She had a small bowlful set aside under a cover, put away for herself, but she was eager to see her labor being enjoyed by someone else; she pushed me onto a stool, insisting I have it. Despite my pie, I downed the stew as well. Brides need nourishment. Both my own grandmothers would have said that. At the moment, I was feeling nostalgic for them.

  “What do people call you?”

  “Gran.”

  “Can I have your recipe, Gran? My aunt runs a caupona up on the Aventine; they could really do with serving up meals as delectable as this. You’ve made the meat really tender!”

  Naturally she pretended she just threw in whatever was to hand that day. That might be true, but she knew how much to throw and what else would taste well with it. “It’s top beef. I get it from the victimarii.”

  “No, really? You mean Costus and company?”

  “You know them?”

  “They are doing the augury for my wedding.”

  “Oh, that will be lovely for you. Just tell old Staberius what you want him to prophesy.” I managed to assume the correct dreamy look, as if I was really looking forward to the ceremony. Grandmothers have standards. They know marriage is a lottery, but they expect a bride to be full of joy on the day. There will be plenty of time later for her to admit she has made a horrible m
istake.

  “So how come the handsome sacrifice boys have a butcher’s shop?”

  The granny tapped her nose, but told me. “Oh, they have a lot of little sidelines. One of my grandsons is in that crew; I have to stop him telling me the horrible things that go on … It’s not a shop. You have to come round to the back gate on the right day…” So if a sacrifice went wrong, if a large bull was slaughtered and there were leftovers, if a beast came up from their country farm and then was not wanted by a fickle client, Costus let favored neighbors buy choice cuts on the quiet.

  “If the gods don’t get a sniff of altar smoke, they won’t know what they’ve lost?” I smiled.

  “Gods only have wafts of offal anyway. The main meat is handed out—after the bastard priests have had a good dinner first!”

  “My grandma on the Aventine reckoned offal was the best meat.”

  “She was brought up poor if she thought that!”

  “Yes, she was,” I agreed soberly.

  “All the better for it, girl.”

  “She had a hard life.”

  “But she lived to see her grandchildren thrive.”

  “Yes.” Including the interloper from Britain. Junilla Tacita had viewed me at first with intense suspicion, in case I did down her “real” family—but she mellowed.

  She, too, would have come and wept at this wedding I was to have. She enjoyed a good cry on a happy occasion. I suppose it made up for all the tears she had bravely bitten back during tragic times. She had known plenty of those.

  *

  I gazed at the Brown Toad’s cooking granny. “So tell me, old one: did you know the famous Rufia?”

  She cackled with loud laughter. “Who didn’t?”

  I took a chance. I decided she was honest and would speak her mind. “This is an unpleasant thing to ask but I have to: did Rufia run a vice ring from that bar?”

  That was when the granny snatched back the bowl of stew intended for Faustus. For a moment I thought she was offended and he had lost his lunch—but she only wanted to stand his bowl on the brazier to keep it warm. It suggested we were in for a long chat. Excellent! (Faustus could wait.) She pulled up another stool for herself and squatted, groaning as her joints protested.