One Virgin Too Many mdf-11 Page 3

  "She took one of her daughters to some function where young girls were being introduced to Queen Berenice."

  Helena looked surprised. "That doesn't sound like Maia!" Rather like me, my sister despised establishment formality. Being asked to attend on Titus' exotic lady friend would normally make Maia as rebellious as Spartacus.

  Petronius seemed to know about it: "Something to do with the lottery for a new Vestal Virgin."

  Again, not like Maia.

  "I had no chance for small talk," I said. "You know Maia. As soon as she saw me, she worked out that I had bad news. I was home-yet where was Famia? Even he would normally have dropped his luggage at his own apartment before heading for a wine bar. She guessed."

  "How is she taking things?" asked Pa.

  "Too well."

  "What does that mean? She's a sensible type. She won't make a fuss." He knew nothing about his younger children, Maia and me. How could he? When he absconded from responsibility I was seven, Maia only six. He saw neither of us for over twenty years.

  When I first told Maia her husband was dead, she fell into my arms. Then she backed off at once and demanded the details. I had rehearsed the story enough times, on the sea trip home. I kept it brief. That made it seem even more bleak. Maia became very still. She stopped asking questions. She ignored what I said to her. She was thinking. She had four children and no income. There would be a funeral fund to which the Green chariot faction had made Famia contribute, which would pay for an urn and an inscription which she did not want but which she would have to accept to give the children a memorial of their disreputable sire. Maybe the Greens would come up with a small pension. She would qualify for the pauper's corn dole. But she would have to work.

  Her family would help. She would not ask us to do it, and when we offered we would always have to say it was for the children. The children, who ranged from nine to three, were already frightened, bewildered, inconsolable. But they were all very bright. After Maia and I carefully explained that they had lost their father, I reckoned they sensed there was a secret we were keeping back.

  My sister had known tragedy before. There had been a firstborn daughter who had died of some childhood disease at about the age the elder son, Marius, was now. I had been away in Germany when it happened, and to my shame I tended to forget. Maia would never forget. But she had borne her grief alone; Famia was never any use.

  Petronius took Julia from Pa and handed her to Helena, giving Pa the nudge that they should leave. Pa, typically, failed to respond. "Well, she'll remarry of course."

  "Don't be so certain," Helena disagreed quietly. It was a rebuke to men. Pa failed to take this hint too. I buried my face in my hands for a moment, reflecting that an attractive, unprotected woman like my sister would indeed have to fend off a rash of propositions, many of them repulsive. That must be just one aspect of her despair in her new situation. Still, removing predators was one thing I could help her with.

  "I bet…" Pa had been struck by one of his terrible mischievous ideas. "I bet your mother," he suggested to me portentously, "will try to set her up with somebody we know!"

  I could not bring myself even to try thinking up who he meant.

  "Somebody else who's been given a nice station in life-congratulations, by the way, Marcus, and not before time; we must celebrate, son-on some better occasion, of course," he conceded reluctantly.

  Belatedly I caught on. "You don't mean-"

  "He has a good position with a sound employer, plenty of loot, prime of life, well known to us all-I reckon he's obvious," crowed Pa. "Your mother's precious lodger!"

  I kicked back my stool, stood, then walked off to my bedroom, slamming the door like an offended child. It had been a bad day, but now I felt truly sickened. Like all my father's wild remarks, this had a deadly air of probability. If you ignored the fact the lodger was a poisonous, parasitic fungus with the ethics of a politically devious slug, here indeed was a salaried, propertied, recently elevated man who was longing to be part of the family.

  Oh gods: Anacrites!

  IV

  "What's the true story about Famia, then?" asked Petro, running into me in Fountain Court the next morning. I shrugged and said nothing. He gave me a sour look. I avoided his eye, once again cursing Famia for putting me in this position. "Bastard!" Despite his annoyance, Petronius was looking forward to trying to force it out of me.

  "Thanks for taking Pa off last night."

  He knew I was trying to change the subject. "You owe me for that. I had to let him drag me to Flora's and drink half my week's salary."

  "You can afford a long night in a caupona then?" I asked narrowly, as a way in to probing where he stood with his wife.

  Arria Silvia had left him, over what Petro regarded as a minor infringement of the marital code: his crazy affair with a dim daughter of a prime gangster, which had cost him suspension from the vigiles and much scorn from those who knew him. The threat to his job had been temporary, like the affair, but the loss of his wife-which meant the virtual loss of his three children-looked likely to be permanent. For some reason, Silvia's angry response had come as a surprise to Petronius. My guess was, he had been unfaithful before and Silvia had often known it, but this time she also had to live with the unpalatable fact that half the population of the Aventine were grinning over what had been going on.

  "I afford what I like."

  We were both dodging. I hoped this was not some fatal result of our attempted partnership. That had been just before I shackled myself to Anacrites. As friends since the army, Petronius and I had expected to be ideal colleagues, yet we had cut across one another from the start, each wanting his own way of doing things. We parted company after I found a chance to make a spectacular arrest without him; Petro reckoned I had kept him out of it deliberately. Since he was my best friend, breaking up with him had hurt.

  When we fell out, Petro went back to the vigiles. It was where he belonged. He was enquiry chief of the Fourth Cohort, and even his po-faced hard-man tribune had to admit Petronius was damned good at it. He had thought he was going back to his wife too. But once Arria Silvia gave up on him, she had wasted no time finding herself a boyfriend-a potted-salad seller, to Petro's complete disgust. Their children, all girls, were still youngsters, and although Petronius was entitled to keep them with him, it would be stupid to attempt to do so unless he remarried quickly. Naturally, like most men who throw away a happy situation for a trifle when they think they can get away with it, he now believed that all he wanted was his wife back. Silvia was settling for her beetroot molder instead.

  Helena thought that, with his record, Petronius Longus might find it just as hard to acquire a new wife as to reclaim the old one. I disagreed. He was well built and decent-looking, a quiet, intelligent, affable type; he had a salaried position and had shown himself to be a handy homemaker. It was true that at present he was living in my squalid old bachelor apartment, drinking too much, cursing too openly, and flirting with anything that moved. But he had fate on his side. Looking bitter and wounded would work the right charms. Women love a man with a history. Well, it had worked for me, hadn't it?

  If I could not give him the whole story about Famia yet, I had plenty of other news. "I have a lot to tell you." I had no compunction about exposing Anacrites' dalliance with the gladiatorial sword. Petro would settle for that scandal, until the fuss died down and I could explain the Famia fiasco confidentially.

  "Free for dinner?" he offered.

  I had to shake my head. "In-laws."

  "Oh, of course!" he retorted, with an edge. My in-laws, now I tentatively called them that, were senatorial-a swanky alliance for an informer. Petronius still did not quite know whether to mock my good luck or throw up in a gutter. "Jupiter, Falco; don't apologize to me. You must be dying to present yourself as the wonderboy imperial favorite with the new middle-class credentials."

  It seemed tactful to find a joke: "Up to my bootstraps in putrid gooseshit."

  He accep
ted it. "Nice, on their expensive marble floors." I noticed his eyes narrow slightly. He had seen something. Without appearing to break off our casual banter, he told me, "Your ma has just turned the corner from Tailors' Lane."

  "Thanks!" I murmured. "This could be a moment to nip off and officiate over some sacred beaks-"

  "No need," returned Petronius, in a changed tone, which carried real admiration. "Looks as if your important new role has just come to you."

  I turned to follow his gaze. At the foot of the steps that led wonkily up to my apartment stood a smart litter. I recognized its white-and-purple-striped curtains, and the distinctive Medusa head boss on the front: the same one that brought little Gaia yesterday.

  Descending from it was a man in ridiculous clothing, whose snooty attendants and wincing demeanor filled me with horror. He wore a shaggy double-sided cloak and on his head a birchwood prong set in a wisp of wool; this contraption was held on by a round hat with earflaps, tied under his chin with two strings, rather like an item that my baby daughter used to pull off and throw on the floor. The cloak was supposed to be the garb of a hero, but the pointy-headed visitor belonged to a caste I had always reviled. In my new position, I would be forced to treat him with fake politeness. He was a flamen, one of the hidebound priests of the ancient Latin cults.

  Two days in the job, and the bastards had already found out where I lived. I had known landlords' enforcers who gave a man more grace.

  V

  After a few words with the basket weaver on the ground floor, the flamen's attendants preceded him up the decaying steps towards my apartment. Outside on the tiny landing where Gaia had broached me yesterday, Nux was now gnawing a large raw knucklebone. She was a small dog, but the way she growled stopped the cavalcade dead.

  There was a short confrontation.

  Nux gripped the bone, which was almost too heavy to lift. I had seen it-and smelled it-when I went out, a decayed monster she must have retrieved after letting it mature for weeks. A couple of flies buzzed off it. Since the half door had been shut behind her to keep Julia in and away from the dog while it was dangerous, Nux had limited options. Her ears went back and she showed the whites of her eyes. Even I would not have approached her. Continually growling, she advanced down the steps, lugging the bone, which thudded on each stone tread. The attendants retreated, stepping on the flamen's toes. Back at the foot of the stairs they squashed into a scared huddle as my dog stalked past them with her precious cargo, all the way subjecting them to a ferocious rolling growl.

  The flamen clutched his cloak around him and sneaked up the steps. His attendants, four in all, reluctantly formed up at the foot of the stairs to protect his back, then when he disappeared indoors they stood at ease beside the litter. Nuxie dropped her bone in the road. Head down, she went around in a circle, pushing imaginary earth over the bone with her nose. Then, convinced her treasure was now invisible, she strolled off looking for something more interesting.

  Petronius, a cat man, guffawed silently. I clapped him on the shoulder; I waved violently to Ma to say this official business should not be interrupted for her usual loving enquiry about my family's bowels; I winked at the basket weaver as I passed his shop. I walked upstairs quietly. The attendants ignored me. Ma called out, but I was used to not hearing my mother when she wanted me.

  Indoors, I captured Julia as she crawled headlong for the half door, which the flamen had left swinging open. Holding the baby on my shoulder and hoping she would keep quiet, I settled my backside against the new turquoise paint of the corridor wall, to overhear the fun.

  ***

  I wondered what the flamen had expected. What he got was the girl I had left at home a few minutes before I met Petronius: a fairly domesticated treasure-with a volatile, rebellious streak. She had kissed me good-bye with a sensual hug and beguiling lips. Only her faraway eyes had revealed to a man who knew her well that she would like to see the back of me; she was dying to read some scrolls Pa had brought for her last night, lifted from an auction in which he was involved. By now she would have delved around in the scrollbox and been happily unrolling the first discovery. She would be furious when the priest interrupted.

  She would see he was a flamen. The cap and prong were unmistakable. Senators' daughters know how to behave. But informers' wives say what they think.

  "I want a man named Falco."

  "You are in his house. Unfortunately, he is not here." Under her naturally pleasant approach, I could tell she had immediately taken against him.

  Helena's accent was more refined than the flamen's. He spoke with unattractive vowels, which were pretending to be better than they were. "I shall wait."

  "He may be a long time. He has gone to see his mother." Despite the fact that I had dodged Ma in Fountain Court, telling her about Famia was indeed supposed to have been my errand.

  If he had heard I was an informer, the flamen probably thought Helena was a hangover from some past adventure of mine. True. He would have assumed he was trying to contact a hard man in a squalid location whose female accomplice would own all the wrinkled charm of an old shoestrap. A bad mistake.

  He would be realizing now that Helena Justina was younger, fiercer, and more refined than he had expected. His pinched nose must register that he stood in a small but scrupulously clean room (swept daily by Ma while we were abroad). It was typical of the Aventine, in that despite an open shutter it smelled of baby, pets, and last night's supper, but through it that morning was issuing a richer, more exotic, much more expensive perfume from the rare balsam on the warm skin beneath the light dress that Helena wore. She was in blue. Without paint, without jewelry. Needing neither. When completely unadorned she could startle and trouble an unwary man.

  "I need to speak to the informer," he whined again.

  "Oh, I know that feeling!" I could imagine how Helena's great brown eyes were dancing as she stalled the priest. "But his specialty is dodging. He will turn up in his own time."

  "And you are?" the man demanded snootily.

  "Who am I?" she mused, still teasing. "The daughter of Camillus Verus, senator and friend of Vespasian; the wife and partner of Didius Falco, agent of Vespasian and Procurator of the Sacred Poultry; the mother of Julia Junilla, who is too young to have social relevance. Those are my formal definitions. My name, should you be keeping a daily diary of the interesting people you meet, is Helena Justina-"

  "You are a senator's daughter-and you live here?" He must be looking around at our bare decorations and furniture. We coped. We had each other. (Plus various tasty artifacts waiting in store for better days.)

  "Certainly not," Helena rattled back promptly. "This is merely an office where we meet members of the public. We live in a spacious villa on the Janiculan." First I heard of it. Still, I was only the head of the household. With a practical young woman in charge of my private life (and in possession of her own bank box), if my home address changed overnight I would be the last to be notified.

  Helena was picking on the prong-bearer now. "I see you are a flamen. Obviously not the Flamen Dialis." The top man, Jupiter's priest, wore an even more ludicrous uniform and kept the public at a distance with a long wand. "The Flamen Quirinalis is my father's second cousin." As far as I knew, this was pure invention. Being related to the priest of Quirinus, the deified Romulus, would place Helena in high circles, if true, and was designed to intimidate. "The Flamen Martialis is ninety and renowned for groping women." Not many people would know the unsavory habits of the priest of Mars. "I believe the Emperor is very concerned about how to deal with it…" Incorrigible girl. "So you are not one of the patrician group," Helena's cool voice concluded, insulting the man if he was at all sensitive about his status. "Which, then, shall I tell Falco has called on him?" she cooed.

  "I am the Flamen Pomonalis."

  "Oh, poor you! That's the lowest of all, isn't it?" Excluding the novelty newcomers who honored the deified emperors, there were fifteen priests in the College of Flamens, three culled fr
om the aristocracy to attend the major deities, and the rest, who sacrificed to gods most people had never heard of and who were recruited from the plebeian ranks. No one I knew had ever been selected; you had to be a pleb whose face fitted. "Do you have a name?" demanded Helena.

  "Ariminius Modullus." I could have guessed it would be an awkward mouthful.

  "Well, if this is about the goslings, Falco has the matter well in hand."

  "The goslings?"

  "The Flamen Dialis has some objection to small birds, I believe."

  This made little sense to Pomona's pointy head. He sounded so wound up that his birchwood prong must be shooting right out of his bonnet. "I have come about Gaia Laelia!"

  "Well, so I assumed." Helena knew how to reply to an overexcited supplicant with maddening calm. "The child came here with an intriguing complaint. You need to know what was said."

  The flamen must be biting his lip as he worried about what had been discussed yesterday.

  "And you want to know what Didius Falco is intending to do," Helena added ominously. If the child really were being threatened at home, it would do no harm to let her people know that we were aware of it. "Is Gaia Laelia a relation?"

  "I am her uncle-by marriage." Where, I wondered, were Gaia's parents in this? Why had they sent this rather stiff mediator? Distracted, I leaned my head sideways, to try to discourage Julia from eating my earlobe.

  "And you are acting for Gaia's parents?" Helena asked, barely hiding her skepticism. I dried Julia's dribble off my ear, using my tunic sleeve. She burped, messily. I wiped her face on the same bunch of sleeve.

  "Gaia is in the guardianship of her grandfather. The family holds to tradition. My father-in-law will remain head of the household while he lives." This meant Gaia's father had not been legally emancipated from the grandfather's control-a situation so old-fashioned that most modern men would regard it as untenable. The scope for causing friction in the family was huge.