Graveyard of the Hesperides Read online

  I counted myself lucky to have been adopted by Falco and Helena. They gave me security, education, comfort and independence. Humor. Rebellion. Loyalty, too. Falco had taught me the craft by which I earned my living. Both my parents encouraged my rampant curiosity.

  Being a well-trained informer would enable me to find out what had happened to Rufia, the missing barmaid. It may not be what you want for your daughter, yet ask yourself: why not? As I set up with Faustus, I would think about this. Does the ability to tackle a mystery about a bunch of bones from under a courtyard mean an informer cannot be a trusty friend? An elegant companion? A useful contributor to the domestic purse? A sweet daughter? A loyal wife? Even a good mother? Although that was certainly not on my horizon, if the apothecaries’ products did their duty.

  Above all, an informer’s task is good; we enable justice. If anyone had ever cared about Rufia, I now hoped to find them, to provide explanations and perhaps consolation. If anyone had done her fatal harm, I would make them pay.

  *

  When we first saw what we presumed were the barmaid’s remains, Faustus and I closed our lunch basket and discussed how to proceed. We were now alone. He had told the workmen to stop what they were doing; he sent them back to the Aventine to their normal evening job, refurbishing the house at Lesser Laurel Street. I hadn’t been much involved with that, so I still found it hard to accept it as “our” house. Faustus had said I could decide whether to live there once I saw it renovated. But I knew I would agree. Meanwhile we lived in my apartment—and, like most people in Rome, spent as much time as possible outside the home.

  Here, we were sitting on one of the bar’s crude wooden benches, which we had pulled out of a stored pile so we could snuggle up to share our lunch. Our seat was an old, worn, splintery contraption. Perhaps the landlord would purchase a handsome new set of garden furniture when his project was finished, though I doubted it. The Hesperides had never been that sort of place.

  It was a workaday bar. Most customers stood in the street, probably at the main counter, which was longer than the return around the corner. They had the usual food vats, never washed out. For a sit-down drink, you came in through a purpose-built gap in the crazy-paved marble worktop, squeezed by the inner tables and service area, maybe glanced at the unreadable drinks list painted on a wall by the beaker shelf, exchanged a word with whoever was serving, walked down a very short corridor with a dark staircase, then emerged into this not very airy, so-called garden.

  It was larger than you might expect. Rustic trellis used to divide up semi-private table positions. I saw no trace of climbing greenery, though two empty birdcages hung on the rough-hewn trellis posts. A canopy shaded one part. There was a half-dead bay tree in a large pot with a rim piece missing. I had yet to work out what kind of customers would ever have used this interior. In Rome, we tend to socialize on the streets.

  The bar owner had never mentioned the mystery, but our foreman, Larcius, had told us the public rumors with a grin: “The site is supposed to be haunted. They say some murdered waitress was buried out here years ago.”

  Faustus had given him a cool look. He and the workforce would have to feel their way together, though it seemed to be working out. They had realized he was no soft touch. He would turn up on-site, where the conversation soon showed them he fully understood what they were doing and anyone who failed to get on with him might lose his job.

  “Not afraid of ghosts, are you, Larcius?” I asked dryly. Larcius did not bother to answer.

  “I find it hard to believe,” said Faustus, playing the serious-minded aedile who discouraged gossip, “that drinkers have downed their tots here for decades, knowing a corpse was right beneath their sandals.”

  “No one remembers much about her.” Larcius seemed to think that justified it. “She’s just always been ‘that missing barmaid.’”

  Not any longer. Now we had found her.

  It would be to her advantage that she had been found by us.

  So, after his men left, Faustus and I considered what we could do. We discussed whether to tell the landlord yet, but decided to keep quiet for the time being. I would begin discreet inquiries about Rufia: who she was, why people believed she had come to a sad end, when it happened, what suspects fell under suspicion originally, what new ones we could identify. I might have wondered why nobody made a real fuss at the time, but I knew. People hate to interfere. Nobody invites trouble. Regulars are always loath to start a hue and cry that might end with their favorite bar being shut down. Many things can be excused as “loyalty.” It’s pathetic, but it’s how people think.

  Before we left that afternoon, we took a last look at the bones. The jumbled haul would not make a complete skeleton. Possibly there were more bones to be found, if they had not decayed completely. These were definitely old, though impossible to say how old. But for hearing past mention of Rufia, they could have been dismissed as really ancient, some prehistoric ancestor who lived here even before Rome was founded. If we were pious, they might have been collected up and reburied in a pot in a proper cemetery, though to be honest, most people would deposit them on the nearest midden heap and walk away fast.

  Faustus pulled down the awning to wrap them. It was stiff with what could well be mold, but Rufia would not complain. We left her bones there, though we carefully locked up. The back gate onto a narrow alley was always left very secure, to stop anyone coming in to steal tools or materials. Faustus blocked the passage to the courtyard with a heavy old door (all building sites contain old doors that don’t belong anywhere, don’t ask me why), piling sacks and timbers against it. Fortunately he employed a night watchman, who had probably heard what happened today because we found him in the main bar; he had come early.

  This was just as well. We had no chance of keeping the discovery private. A small crowd of sightseers had already gathered in the street.

  *

  Faustus used his authority as an aedile to order these ghouls to disperse. They were not impressed, freely ignoring him, and there was a danger that others would join them. He made the best of it with an announcement: “I presume you have heard that human remains have been found. I am aware of the rumored disappearance of a waitress some years ago. There may be no connection. But anyone who knows anything pertinent should come to see one of us.” He indicated that I was included, though I was his wife now, so he didn’t bother with introductions. I smoldered like an appendage who would cause trouble at home later. “Now please, go about your business quietly.”

  Had the Hesperides been open for business, he would have stood no chance of moving people on. As it was, some shuffled off but many simply shifted themselves to the Medusa or the Romulus along the street, then stared across from there.

  Because of the public interest, we went back and, helped by our watchman, reopened the passageway indoors so we could fetch the bones safely away with us.

  After that, since too many people already knew, we set off to inform the landlord after all.

  IV

  Pedantic people will probably wonder where these events took place. Extremely pedantic bods with fixed-narrative ideas will ask why I have not mentioned it before. Look here, you write things your way, Legate. I shall draft my case notes just how I want.

  So! The Garden of the Hesperides stood in the city’s Sixth District, the Alta Semita, or High Footpath. The bar occupied a corner on the Vicus Longus, which is an extension of the famous Argiletum, the main road north from our fine new imperial fora. The latest, Domitian’s Forum Transitorium, would add some lustre when it was finished, but the Argiletum’s reputation had always been unsavory, especially the area called the Subura. It was allegedly famous for booksellers and cobblers, but in the Subura trade of all kinds flourished, and I do mean all.

  The Hesperides, Medusa and Romulus stood in a dirty enclave called the Ten Traders. There certainly were shops, as Decem Tabernae implied, but bars and eateries abounded, some keeping so quiet about the brothel upstairs it looke
d as if they only sold wine and stuffed cabbage leaves. No one was fooled. This area had no temples to virgin goddesses.

  The Garden of the Hesperides seemed popular, though not quite as lively as its immediate neighbors, the deafening Four Limpets, the raucous Soldier’s Rest and the utterly appalling Brown Toad, where bisexual prostitutes openly solicited from front benches. The Ten Traders sits on the southern end of the Viminal Hill, the smallest of the ancient Seven Hills of Rome. It is a dull ridge that is mostly passed by, with roads on either side taking people to more interesting places.

  The landlord lived in Crab-apple Alley, in a rented apartment above a potter’s, just around the corner from his bar. He could go home for lunch. From what I guessed about the Hesperides and its daily menu, he would probably want to. His proximity meant we could not expect to keep anything quiet; in fact, highly excited neighbors must already have rushed around to burble what had happened. Luckily for us, he had been out—we met him as he fiddled with his latch-lifter on his way back in. Nobody had spoken to him yet, giving us the theoretical advantage of surprise.

  I felt that if he knew anything at all about Rufia, his surprise would be slight. Surely he must have suspected the workmen would find something? Since the skeleton seemed incomplete, a curious informer was bound to wonder whether he had actually made an attempt to find and remove evidence before any work started. I asked Faustus; he knew of no prior digging, but he had not been in charge of the project at its start. I told him to question his foreman. He meekly promised to do so.

  The landlord was one Publius Julius Liberalis, as we knew from the building contract. Three names, all Latinate—a free citizen. Rome’s finest, and somewhat typical: a short man with a large head. On it was robust silver hair, which he parted in the middle. That suits nobody. Two silver horns of hair sat over his temples with matching sideburn points. He enhanced the four horns by twiddling them when he was nervous. I tried not to dismiss him as a wrong ’un just because he had a bad hairstyle. But it set the tone for me.

  He looked between thirty and forty. That mattered, because according to my impression of the timescale, he would have been young when Rufia vanished. Possibly even too young to go into bars, though boys start young in the Subura. Drinking is not the only thing they start early, either.

  I had met him casually on-site, though he showed no recollection of it. This time, Faustus gave me a proper introduction, as if he might have caught my frosty glance just now at the bar. “Flavia Albia is an informer who works with me when something needs special investigation. We are about to be married, I am delighted to say, so I’ll have even better access to her expertise. There is a problem at your bar. We need to talk to you.”

  Liberalis had at first assumed Faustus needed a decision from him on something to do with the renovation. Faced with the unexpected threat of special inquiries, he grew flustered, gabbling that he never had visitors so had left his apartment in a terrible mess. I just reached in and helped him with his latch-lifter while Faustus pushed the door. When somebody is reluctant to admit an informer, it only makes us more determined to get in. Did he have an ulterior motive?

  Actually, no. When we pushed past the quavering Liberalis and stormed his citadel, it was indeed stupendously untidy. Tangles of clothes and old wine flagons covered every surface, no rubbish had been emptied for weeks, sandals lived on the windowsill, lopsided pictures dangled off bent nails, and if you wanted to sit down you had to forage for a stool and then offload armfuls of detritus. Whatever you moved had to be added to teetering piles of other stuff. He probably claimed he knew where everything was, as idiots do, but that would be impossible.

  “Well done!” I exclaimed, since there was no point pretending not to notice. “I’ve known adolescent boys who would envy what you have achieved here.”

  “An old biddy comes and does, since my mother passed away, but she’s been off color…” I saw her point. This was clearly not a man whose mother had taught him he must tidy up before the cleaner came.

  There was no wife. So long as this remained his bolt-hole, there would never be. To me he had a distinct mother’s-boy air, old-fashioned, innocent, probably selfish, ill at ease in company. Like many people who hanker to run a bar, he was poorly equipped for it. Perhaps the Hesperides had been there so long it would run itself despite him. He wanted success and was not tight with his money, as we knew from the work he was having done. I presumed he could afford it because he had no social life and no other calls on his cash.

  Since refreshments would never be forthcoming, Faustus and I sat ourselves down, waited a moment in a friendly fashion for Liberalis’ nerves to settle, then waded in.

  “The workmen have found a human skeleton, or parts of it. I had to stop them working so we can investigate. Fortunately Flavia Albia has a talent for this, so if I don’t have time, she will conduct some checks. People have mentioned a disappearing barmaid, someone called Rufia?”

  Faustus had begun, while I watched the way Liberalis received the news. He took it like any householder with a project: “Will this hold up the job?”

  Faustus ignored that, as if waiting for our news to sink in and Liberalis to speak more decently. “Is the barmaid story familiar?” he asked sternly.

  Liberalis became more guarded. “I may have heard rumors.”

  “Do you know when she is supposed to have vanished?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. Many years ago.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Yes.” So going by his age, her disappearance could not have been quite as long ago as the rumors suggested.

  “And people believe somebody killed her?”

  “Hazard of her job.”

  “It didn’t put you off taking on the bar?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You thought it was merely a rumor?”

  “I am not afraid of ghosts.”

  I leaned forward as I suggested gently, “I think you ought to tell us more about your connection with the Hesperides, Liberalis. Were you waiting for your predecessor to pass on so you could take over? I have the impression you had been planning how to renovate, once you obtained the premises. Is that correct?”

  “We were distant cousins. He was older. He had no one else to leave it to. We always knew it would come to me one day. Yes, he’d had the place a long time so he probably lost interest in change, while I sometimes thought about better ways to run the place. I used to have dinner there. I would look around and imagine what I could do with it; that’s natural.”

  “No animosity?”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to upset him. It was harmless daydreaming that I don’t suppose he even noticed. I think he was glad to know his place would stay in the family. But we rarely spoke about it.”

  “What was his name?” Faustus interjected.

  “Thales. Everyone always called him ‘Old Thales.’”

  Thales was a Greek name. So the barkeeper may have been Greek. Or more likely not. The Greeks are famous for traveling abroad to resettle for economic reasons, yet I could not imagine they would come to a notorious part of Rome and buy a dingy bar. Immigrant Greeks were either slaves who became very high-class secretaries or financiers in high-end trade or banking.

  “Thales was a well-known local character?” I asked, concealing how much I despise such types.

  “Oh yes.” Liberalis looked a little jealous. “Everyone knew Old Thales. He had a great reputation.”

  “What as?” asked Faustus, keeping it light.

  “Oh, you know.”

  We sat quietly, with raised eyebrows, implying that we did not know. The truth would emerge if I started asking around, but it would have been useful to know first how Liberalis assessed his predecessor. They must have been opposite types.

  “A rather colorful landlord?” I hinted eventually, determined to extract more.

  “Larger than life,” agreed Liberalis with another tinge of envy. I tried not to groan.

  “So what exactly is this
story about his missing barmaid?”

  Liberalis shrugged. Faustus and I again waited for him to elaborate. Finally he caved in, though he was sparing with real facts: “Rufia was a waitress at the Hesperides. Everyone who went there knew her. One day she suddenly disappeared, without any warning. Nothing more was ever heard of her. Old Thales was the owner at the time. That is all I know.”

  “So people thought the landlord did her in?” I demanded bluntly.

  Liberalis shrugged again.

  “Unfounded rumors or grain of truth?” Faustus tried, but it still took him nowhere. “How long ago was it? Did you know Rufia yourself?”

  “I told you, everyone who patronized the Hesperides knew Rufia.”

  “Including you? You weren’t too young?”

  “Including me.”

  “But you wouldn’t describe your relationship with her as close?”

  “That’s right. She was a barmaid. She put my dinner on the table; she didn’t bother to chat. She knew me as one of the family but she treated me as a customer, a young one, too, in those days.”

  “What kind of barmaid?” I put in.

  “The normal kind,” answered Liberalis calmly.

  “She gave the full range of services?”

  “She was a barmaid,” he insisted, not even blinking.

  We all knew what he meant.

  V

  Consulting each other with a glance, Faustus and I stopped the interview. We would find out more from other people before, if necessary, pressing Liberalis harder. So far, he had only confirmed the vague rumor that had hung around the Hesperides for years. It could be all he knew. It could be all anybody knew nowadays. But instinctively I felt he was holding back.

  The person to question next, were it possible, would be the previous landlord, but Old Thales, colorful character and chief suspect, was inconveniently dead. I decided not to question his successor about him any more at this stage, since Liberalis might feel too much gratitude to be honest, after the bequest of his coveted bar. I would ask around locally, starting soon, before there was daft gossip and people were lured into “knowing” that mere supposition was fact. That crowd who had headed off to the Romulus would now be standing there deciding Rufia’s history. Loudmouths with their elbows on the counter would be telling how it was, on the flimsiest evidence. I had seen it too often. The wilder their stories, the more the rest swore they had personally seen it all happen—and they would soon genuinely believe they had. Then I would never shake them.