One Virgin Too Many Read online

  “You know nothing about it, Falco.” The Pomonalis suddenly sounded tired. “And this has nothing to do with finding Gaia.”

  I pulled up.

  He and his wife were involved in some deceit; I had no doubt of it. But he was right. A young child was in danger, and that took precedence. Finding Gaia was my job.

  I asked Ariminius to supply me with slaves to assist, and then I set about completing a systematic search of the entire house and grounds.

  XXXVII

  IT MUST HAVE been early afternoon when we set out. With the help of a large contingent of slaves, the whole place was gone over within a few hours.

  Ariminius Modullus hung about. I might have wondered if he knew something bad and was watching in case I got too close. I did not trust him, but he was straight about the search. He watched and listened when I first gave orders, then he joined in. He did seem to understand how urgent the situation was, yet in a perverse way he was starting to enjoy the action, as he collected a posse and began supporting my efforts to show them how they must look into every chest and hamper, then under, in, and behind anything that had even a crack of room to squeeze inside.

  He liked having something to do. I always kept an eye out, but his cooperation took some of the strain off me. I was grateful. The responsibility of finding the child was a hard one. Not finding her would be a grim burden to live with. It would have been oppressive enough, even if I did not know she had asked for my help and I had refused her.

  My bet was that since he married Laelia, Ariminius had sunk into apathy, living with such a strong figure as his father-in-law. By the end of the afternoon I actually went so far as to tell him, man to man, “Numentinus has no patriarchal authority over you. You may respect him and the honored position he used to hold in your priesthood—but you answer to your own father.”

  “Grandfather, actually. He drools a bit, but he lets me do what I like.” He seemed almost human; still, before he joined the pointy-heads, he had been as common as I used to be. We were both born plebs.

  “My advice is to leave here when this episode is over, and become head of your own household.” When he looked uncertain, I remembered the drab side of being a plebeian and asked, “Is funding a problem?”

  To my surprise he said at once, “No. I have money.”

  “But living in the Flaminia was too attractive?”

  He smiled wryly. “I was ambitious once! But I shall probably not be promoted above Flamen Pomonalis now.” He did not say, even with the ex-Flamen Dialis as my father-in-law.

  “I suppose you get sneered at by your in-laws for that?”

  At first he was not intending to answer, then he squeezed out an affirmative. “And there is my wife to consider.”

  “But Statilia Laelia does not remain in her father’s patriarchal control now she is married.”

  “Not legally!” he said, with feeling.

  “If her husband left to live independently, she would go with him—of course.”

  Ariminius was silent. Interesting. “At the moment,” he then said, like a man who had thought this out already, “desertion would be a cruelty.” Desertion seemed a strong word to use for moving out of his father-in-law’s house—though Numentinus was no ordinary father-in-law. Then I wondered if he meant more; if he left, would he shed the whole pack of them, wife and all? Would he want to leave Laelia behind?

  Before I could ask him, he added, as if wanting to close the subject, “It’s a difficult time, Falco.”

  “Really? There is a family secret, I gather.”

  “Nothing escapes you.”

  “I get to the truth in the end. I am beginning to suspect that I know what your secret is. So are you going to enlighten me?”

  “It is not for me to tell. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with the child,” said Ariminius.

  “Flamen Pomonalis, you had better be right—or if anything has happened to her, it will be on your conscience!”

  *

  We had started with the kitchen garden at the back of the house. We scoured every patch of ground, while the men used forks and two-pronged hoes to turn all the piles of rubbish. There had been a bonfire; I myself raked through its ashes while the slaves were making the final push into the area of wildest growth towards the far wall. I sent for a ladder (the builders had left plenty) and even climbed up and looked over that wall. There was a public bath beyond it, in a maze of streets. If Gaia had, somehow, scaled this barrier she would then have been away in the reaches of the Aventine that ran towards the Raudusculana Gate. But first she would have had a climbing feat ahead of her. Even I only managed to barge through the rampant undergrowth with a great many curses, scratches, and a badly torn tunic; it seemed impossible for a child. The height of the wall when balanced on a precarious ladder placed on very rough ground was too off-putting. Not that I ever rule out anything absolutely. If she thought she was fleeing for her life, desperation could make anything feasible.

  Next we probed and picked over the house. I divided the workforce and placed half in command of Ariminius; I started at the top with my men, he started at the bottom with his, and after crossing halfway we knew that every cranny should have been investigated not just once but twice.

  There were large salons and small cubicles. An area which must have been far older than the rest of the property had all the rooms running into each other in an old-fashioned sequence, then there were other wings where tasteful modern reception rooms led off frescoed corridors. A damp basement consisted of about fifty cells for slaves; that allowed rapid searching. All they had in them were a few meager treasures and hard pallets to sleep on. We lined up the slaves, army style, each outside his or her own compartment, while we searched. That gave me a chance to ask every one if they knew anything or had seen Gaia yesterday after her mother sent the nurse to other duties.

  “What duties were they, incidentally?” I checked routinely with Ariminius, but he only shrugged and looked vague. Giving instructions to women was a woman’s business—or at least that was what he wanted me to think.

  There are odd contents in most homes, though few so odd as I saw here. In the ex-Flamen’s bedroom, which was some way from the rest of his family, stood a casket of sacrificial cakes (in case of night starvation?) and the bed legs were smeared with clay—an accommodation that allowed a practicing Flamen Dialis to escape the ancient prescription that he must sleep upon the ground. It was no longer necessary for Numentinus. Retirement meant nothing to the old man—though this seemed an affectation in his new house.

  I could not have lived here. What passed for refinement in their lives made me turn up my fine long Etruscan nose: the ex-Flamen’s library, for instance, contained nothing but scrolls of ritual nonsense, as oblique as the Sibylline Books. Throughout the house there were too many niches that had been set up as shrines, and the cloying stench of incense lingered everywhere. Looms for the women were lined up in a whole bank in a bare room, like the workshop of the most miserable tailor. The wine store was meager. Even Helena and I, at our lowest ebb financially, had paid more attention to the quality of what went in our oil lamps. Shabbiness is one thing; lack of interest is pitiful.

  I was not here to criticize their life. But if more people had done so in the past, and if its quality had been improved, just maybe there would have been less unhappiness. Then maybe the child would be safe at home.

  We reached the point where there was only one ghastly place that we had not probed. My heart sank. I had hoped to avoid this. Still, it needed to be done. After checking with the plan, I led the way to a small cubicle in the kitchen area. A call for a volunteer met with silence, as I expected. I told Ariminius to pick out a slave who needed punishment, then I sent for buckets and gave orders to remove the wooden two-hole seat so we could excavate the lavatory.

  It was impossible to reach down very far from ground level, so we put the protesting slave into the hole in a sling and passed him a long stick to probe the depths. We kept him dow
n there an hour, until he seemed about to faint. We hauled him out just in time. The latrine had been very well constructed, with a shaft a yard and a half deep, but we found nothing, thank the gods.

  Well, we found plenty. Nothing relevant.

  *

  We had done all we could. Short of tearing off the roof and battering holes in partitions, we had searched everywhere it was feasible to look. Ariminius lost himself, his earlier enthusiasm deflated by our failure. Receiving no further orders from him or from me, the slaves drifted off too. Even my escort conveniently forgot he had been ordered to stick with me.

  There was nothing else I could do. I thought about sleeping here overnight, to listen to noises and absorb the atmosphere. But I had had enough of the dreary, stultifying aura of this unhappy home. I could not determine exactly what was wrong, but there were remnants of old miseries everywhere. I thought there was something worse too. Something terrible they were all hiding. I just hoped the Pomonalis had been right when he claimed it did not concern Gaia.

  I walked for one last time into the peristyle garden. No one was there now. Holding Gaia’s little twiggy mop, I strode slowly around the central area, then sat on the marble bench, leaning my elbows on my knees. I had not eaten all day. I was filthy and knocked about. Nobody here had ever thought of offering me refreshments or the facilities to clean up. I was long past being able to complain or say what I thought of them. Still, this was everyday fare for an informer. I was not yet so nicely respectable that I would shriek if I noticed my white tunic had turned nearly black and that, not to be too dainty about it, I stank.

  Somebody came out behind me. I was too stiff and too depressed to move.

  “Falco.” Hearing the voice of the ex-Flamen, I did force myself to turn around, though I would not rise for him. “You have done well. We are grateful.”

  I could not help sighing. “I have done nothing.”

  “It seems she is not here.”

  I looked around again, helplessly. She was still at home. I felt convinced of it. My voice sounded husky. “Forgive me for not finding her.”

  “I am aware of how hard you have tried.” From him that was gratitude. Rather to my surprise he came and placed himself at the table where the workmen’s crumbs had once been squabbled over by the sparrows. “Do not think us harsh, Falco. She is a beguiling, sweet-natured little girl, my only grandchild. I prayed with all my heart that you would have found her today.”

  I was too weary to react. But I did believe him.

  I stood up. “I’ll find out whether the vigiles have discovered anything.” If so, it could only be bad news now. The old man looked as if he knew that. “If she still fails to turn up, may I come back here tomorrow and see what else can be done?”

  He pursed his lips. He did not want me here. Yet he inclined his head, allowing it. Maybe he really did love Gaia. Or maybe he sensed that this loss of the small child could be the incident that split apart his family when all else had failed to break his dominance.

  “I know what you feel about the vigiles, sir, but I would like to bring in one officer, my friend Petronius Longus. He has vast experience—and is the father of young girls. I want to walk the ground with him, and see if he turns up anything I missed.”

  “I would prefer to avoid that.” It was not quite a refusal, and I kept it in reserve. “A woman is here to speak to you,” he then told me. “You are wanted elsewhere.”

  Nothing much seemed to matter to me at the moment, but I still had it in me to be curious. As I dragged myself to my feet and turned to leave the garden to find my personal visitor, the other curiosity prevailed.

  “It had seemed to me,” I told Numentinus somberly, “the best hope of finding Gaia would be if she had mischievously crept into some hole from which she could not escape. But we seem to have disproved that.” Numentinus was walking slowly alongside me. “The most likely alternative,” I commented, determined not to spare him now, “is that she has run away because of family problems.”

  I had expected the ex-Flamen to be furious. His reaction turned everything I assumed on its head. He laughed. “Well, we would all like to run away from those!” While I was getting over that, he tossed the suggestion aside with a sneer of contempt. “Now you have lost my confidence, Falco, after all.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I deserve that, sir! It’s fairly plain something came to a head here after the death of Terentia Paulla’s husband. Well, look at it—a man who was not even a blood relative, a family friend, yes—but one who had been abusive towards your womenfolk—” Although they had told me Numentinus did not know, I reckoned he was well aware of it; at any rate, he showed no surprise now. “Next minute, you are consulting everyone, including the widow—again, only a relative of your late wife’s, and a woman with whom you yourself have been at odds regularly. Even your estranged son was in on the debate. He spun me a wild story about that! So tell me,” I insisted heatedly, “for whom is the legal guardian really needed? And why, exactly?”

  Shocked by my vehemence, Numentinus stayed silent. And he was not intending to answer me: he dodged it all. “I cannot imagine what my son has said to make you think this way. It simply shows how unworldly he is, and proves me right to continue to hold him in my patriarchal power.”

  “He wants to help his aunt. That seems commendable.”

  “Terentia Paulla needs no help from anyone,” Numentinus uttered crushingly. “Anybody who has told you otherwise is a fool!” He paused. “Or completely mad,” he added, in a baleful voice.

  *

  I was too disheartened to protest or make further enquiries. What he said had a ghastly ring of truth.

  I walked to the entrance hall they were using, and there at last my spirits rose slightly: the person who had asked for me was Helena. She was holding my toga, which somebody must have found and given to her, and she smiled gently. Obviously she had heard I had failed. There was no need to waste effort explaining.

  I noticed she was rather well dressed, in a gleamingly clean white gown and a modest stole over hair which looked suspiciously fanciful to arouse new dreads. She was wearing a gold necklace her father had given her when Julia was born. She was scented divinely with Arabic balsam and her face, on close inspection, had been lightly touched up with such skill in the use of the paint that it had to have been applied by one of her mother’s maids or with the help of Maia.

  The last thing I wanted now was the kind of social gathering that called for such titivation.

  “Come along.” Helena grinned, seeing my horror. She sniffed at me “Nice unguents, Falco! You have such exquisite taste … A litter is waiting outside with a clean tunic for you. We can stop at a bathhouse if you’re quick.”

  “I am in no mood for a party.”

  “It’s official: no option. Titus Caesar wants you.”

  Titus Caesar sometimes did discuss state issues with me. I was not expected to take a chaperon. So what was this about?

  Titus, in my opinion, had once nursed a partiality for Helena. As far as I knew it had remained hypothetical, though she had needed to leave Rome in a hurry to avoid awkwardness. She still avoided him, and would certainly never normally turn out rigged like this, in case it revived his ideas.

  “What’s the wrinkle, fruit?”

  Helena was smiling. Full of joy at seeing her, I had already let myself start to sink into her power. “Don’t worry, my darling,” she murmured. “I shall take care of you. I think, from what the messenger told me, our hosts will be wonderful Titus—and the fabulous Queen of Judaea.”

  XXXVIII

  NO WISE MAN can possibly answer the question: Was Queen Berenice really beautiful? Well, not when any of his womenfolk are listening.

  I wondered if my brother Festus, he who died the heroic or not-quite-so-heroic death in her country, had ever seen Titus Caesar’s armful. I found myself overcome by a yearning to discuss with Festus what he thought of her. Not that I mean to imply that anything would have happened if Festus
, a mere centurion of common origin and raffish habits, ever had seen her, but, as is well known, Didius Festus was a lad.

  Well, was she beautiful?

  “Loud!” Ma would have said.

  Achieved with sensitivity and high-quality trappings, loudness has its virtues. I happen to believe there is a place for loud women. (Festus thought so too; for him, their place was in his bed.)

  Let it not be suggested that I am dodging the issue through a bad brother who happened to have had a reputation for jumping anyone in long skirts. I just want to say, as I am quite happy to do even if Helena Justina should be on hand, that had my brother Festus seen Queen Berenice he would undoubtedly have risen to the challenge of trying to displace his elite commander (Titus Caesar, legate of the Fifteenth Legion when Festus served with them)—and that I personally would have enjoyed watching Festus have a go.

  That’s all. A man can dream.

  Believe me, a man can hardly avoid it when he has spent hours supervising bucketfuls of grunge from the depths of a lavatory that must have been first used in republican times and rarely emptied since, then he walks into a room so full of exotic items that he can barely take them all in—not counting the dame in the diadem who is apparently feeding flattery to Titus as if it were huge pearly oysters in wine sauce. (Titus is lapping up her murmured endearments like a parched dog.) (The attendants have their eyes on stalks.) (Helena chokes.)

  “Oh, settle down, Falco. It’s just a woman. Two eyes, one nose, two arms, a rather obvious bust, and perhaps not quite as many teeth as she must have owned once.”

  I do not practice dentistry. I had not been looking at the Queen’s teeth.

  *

  Luckily, we had just entered a suite in Nero’s Golden House where the waterworks came in multiple quantities, with a luxuriant supply which was continually switched on. Liquefactious sheets of water slid down stair fountains; fine spouts tinkled in marble shells. High ceilings absorbed some of the stray sound and swathes of rich drapery muffled the rest. Unintentionally, the mad imperial harpist had created a satirist’s dream: in the Golden House, a sharp girl could be rude about a rival all the way across the room—indeed, right until the rival’s oriental perfumes knocked her back a pace, trying not to sneeze.