One Virgin Too Many Read online

  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 from 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.

  “Gaia Laelia belongs to a family who have a long history of the highest religious service. Her grandfather is Publius Laelius Numentinus, the recently retired Flamen Dialis—”

  Yes, that was the fool who had been complaining about my goslings. Interesting that he had in fact retired from office; everyone on the Capitol had still seemed to regard him with active terror.

  “I thought a priesthood was for life. Some dereliction of his duties?” Helena chuckled, ignoring the speaker’s pomposity. Priests who disgraced their office might be asked to resign, but it was rare. For one thing, the priests of the official cult had the power to cover up their crimes and the wherewithal to control critics. They could be absolute bastards, yet the truth would never get out. Let’s be honest: they could be bastards and everybody knew it, but still no controls would be applied.

  The Flamen Pomonalis was stiff: “The Flaminica, his wife, has died. Since the Flaminica partakes officially in many ceremonies, it is necessary for a widowed Flamen Dialis to step down. Otherwise, essential rites would be incomplete.”

  Helena’s own voice grew cold. “Hard, I always thought, for a man to lose both his wife and his position at a stroke. Especially when the position is so significant, and its rituals are so demanding. Gaia’s grandfather must now find his life rather empty. Is this part of the problem?”

  “There is no problem.”

  “Well, I am relieved to hear it.” She had the knack of seeming to engage in mere polite conversation, while she doggedly pursued a point. She wanted to know what had been happening in this family to make a young child take the unusual step of seeking outside help. A thwarted six-year-old would normally slam doors, scream herself into convulsions, and throw her wooden doll through a window, but then be pacified in a few seconds with just a bowl of honeyed nuts. “Even so, your young niece came here with a tale of woe and now you too are here to discuss it… . What puzzled us was how Gaia chose Falco to confide in. How would she have known who he was?”

  “She may have heard his name mentioned in connection with his appointment as Procurator of the Sacred Birds.” It gave me a thrill to imagine some crusty old ex-priest of Jupiter exploding with rage over his breakfast while he heard that the Emperor had given ancient responsibilities to an upstart informer—who would now be allowed to poke around with impunity among the temple enclosures. Was that why Vespasian had done it? “And I believe,” conceded the Flamen Pomonalis, “Gaia Laelia met a relative of yours at the reception when certain promising young ladies were introduced to Queen Berenice.”

  His significant tone seemed rather overdone. The only link I had with Berenice was my sister Maia’s uncharacteristic foray to the Palace, the day I had first tried to find her. Had the function Maia attended been stuffed with female relatives of priests? I controlled a snigger, wondering what my sister had made of that.

  Helena must have decided to pursue the mystery with Maia later. “Well, I suggest,” she said, so crisply that it seemed like a rebuke, “you tell me exactly what your family’s c
oncerns are.”

  “Our concerns should be obvious!” the flamen snapped. Bluffing. Hoping little Gaia had never said whatever it was her precious family was hoping to keep quiet. Or, if Gaia had revealed too many secrets, trying to play down their importance.

  “Don’t worry. Falco and I know how to regard the complaints of an unhappy child. So embarrassing, is it not?”

  “Children exaggerate,” he declared, relieved that she seemed to understand.

  “I hope that’s the case!” agreed Helena, with feeling. Then she faced him with it: “Gaia says someone in her family threatened to kill her.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “Not you, then?”

  “How dare you!”

  “So who was it?”

  “Nobody!”

  “I do want to believe that is true.”

  “Whatever you were told …” He paused, hoping Helena would tell him more details. No chance.

  “You are requesting us not to interfere.” Helena’s tone was quiet. I knew what that meant: for her, this visit from the flamen made it look as if the child’s appeal for help might be justified.

  “I am glad we understand each other.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. Oh yes! She understood him all right.

  “No one could possibly wish her harm. There are high hopes of Gaia Laelia,” concluded the Flamen Pomonalis. “When the ballot for the new Vestal Virgin is drawn …” He trailed off.

  So a new Vestal was needed, and the little girl I met on my front doorstep had been put forward for the privilege. Could her uncle be suggesting to Helena that Gaia’s name was certain to be drawn by the Pontifex Maximus in the formal lottery? Impossible! Vespasian’s hand would have to dig around in an urn among a whole bunch of tablets. How could anyone know in advance which one would be gripped by the pontifical paw? I felt my face screw up in disgust, as I saw that the Vestal Virgins’ lottery must be fixed.

  How could they do it? Easy as wink. Only one name written on all of the tablets. Or one tablet loaded, like a bad dice. Or quite simply, Vespasian would just announce the preselected name, without looking at the tablets at all.

  Pointy-head was still enthusing. “It would be a new departure in the family—but a great honor. We are all absolutely delighted.”

  “Does that include Gaia herself?” asked Helena coolly.

  “Gaia is passionate about being entered.”

  “Little girls do have such quaint ideas.” The Vestals were not Helena’s favorite women, apparently. I was surprised. I thought she would have approved of their honored role and status. “Well, let us hope she is successful,” Helena went on. “Then she will be taken straight to the House of the Vestals and handed into the control of the Pontifex Maximus.”

  “Er—quite,” agreed the flamen, belatedly sensing an undercurrent. Presuming, however, that his appeals had been successful, he seemed to be about to leave. Taking a firm hold on Julia, I slid down the corridor and towards another room where I could conceal myself. I glimpsed Pomona’s priest, in his cloak and birchwood prong, with his back to me as he bade Helena farewell; he hid me from her view as I crept past.

  I waited until I was sure he had left before I emerged.

  As I opened the door behind which I had been hiding, a small determined figure blocked my way. Julia was whipped from my grasp. I groaned, but only quietly.

  I was facing a tiny, frail old woman whose black eyes bored like bradawls. A bad conscience—for which I had no damned reason—pinned me to the spot.

  “I suppose you have a good explanation,” announced the new arrival fiercely, “why you failed to come home for the little one’s birthday?” I did have. Famia’s funeral rites, such as they were, for the few scraps that had been left of him by the lion: an explanation, though not good. “And I do know what happened to Famia—though I had to hear it from dear Anacrites!”

  “Hello, Mother,” I said. I made it sound meek. “We were forced to spend Julia’s first birthday becalmed off Otia… . Are you going to congratulate me on my new status as a pillar of the state religion?”

  “Don’t give me any of your silly nonsense,” scoffed Ma.

  As usual, I had done what I thought she wanted, only to find her unimpressed.

  VI

  THIS HAD TURNED into a tiring day. First, I had had to dance around Petronius Longus while he showed his pique; now here was Ma. She had various complaints: primarily why I had let her favorite, Anacrites, come home from Tripolitania half dead from the wounds he acquired in the arena. Playing gladiators had been his own idea, but I would get the blame for it. Luckily, it meant he was back as a lodger at Ma’s house for further nursing, so she was not entirely upset.

  “Why are you letting the poor thing go back to his job at the Palace?”

  “Anacrites is grown up, Ma. His career decisions are nothing to do with me.”

  “You two worked so well together.”

  “We made a good pairing for the Census. That’s over now.”

  “You could find other work to share.”

  “Neither of us wanted to remain in partnership. I showed him up.”

  “You didn’t like him, you mean.” Ma kept insisting that I did not really know Anacrites; that I had missed his fine sensitivity; that I belittled his talent. My own theory was that anyone who had tried to persuade an exotic foreign potentate to murder me should be allowed to run his own life—after being sealed in a barrel and dumped a thousand feet under the sea. Somewhere rough off Britain, preferably. “You never gave him a chance. Listen, Anacrites has his sights set on running a new branch of the security services. You could help him with that, Marcus—”

  “Alternatively, I could rot in the Pontine Marshes, eaten by leeches and infected with fever. That would be a whole lot more fun.”

  “And what about Petronius?” demanded Ma, changing tack to catch me out.

  “Petronius belongs in the vigiles.”

  “He belongs with his wife!”

  “The wife who has decided that she now belongs with a potted-salad seller.”

  “I blame you,” said Ma.

  “Not guilty. I wouldn’t shove even Silvia into a life of pressed tripe and lettuce leaves. Petronius looks respectable, but he’s a wandering dog who never saw where his best interests lay until it was too late. Of course the mere fact that I told him all along that he was stupid need not prevent people placing the blame on me!”

  “I don’t dare ask what you did to poor Famia,” Ma muttered darkly.

  “He did it to himself. I brought home the remains, I’ll be a good uncle to the children, and I’ll try to look after Maia.”

  “She won’t thank you.”

  “No, Ma.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed, and we shared one of our rare moments of sense: “So how is she, son?”

  “Too quiet. When I told her the news, she showed almost no emotion.”

  “That won’t last.”

  “I’m keeping an eye out for when she breaks down.”

  “Just don’t you go upsetting her!”

  Helena Justina, who had observed this conversation in silence from her wicker chair, holding the dog on her lap while allowing Julia Junilla to sit on her feet, smiled at me tenderly.

  She was no help. What was more, I faced dinner with her parents that evening, where I would have to stand up to further inquisition about their family problems.

  “You ought to be around at your sister’s instead of loafing here,” ordered my mother. I intended it; I wanted to ask Maia about the reception for Queen Berenice and how would-be little Vestal Virgins fitted into it. “Oh, don’t bother—I’ll go!”

  Ma had forestalled me. The Virgins would have to wait. Petronius Longus would say virgins never do that. Still, the kind of virgins Petro joked about were never just six years old.

  *

  After Ma had gone, I waited for Helena to tell me about the Flamen Pomonalis visit. I had to pretend that I had come home right at the end of it, not th
at I overheard the whole interview. Helena could play up to me as a hidden accomplice if a conspiracy had been agreed on beforehand, but she hated to be spied on secretly. For one thing, she resented being supervised.

  Obviously now deeply troubled, she gave me a succinct report.

  “What exactly was Gaia’s story yesterday when you saw her alone before I came home, Helena?”

  “She said, ‘One of my relations threatened to kill me.’ And that it had frightened her,” Helena told me, looking thoughtful. “She had got it into her head that she needed to see an informer, so I left it for you to deal with.”

  “I’m starting to regret sending her away without asking more questions. I know you thought I should have gone into it more thoroughly.”

  “You had your own troubles, Marcus.”

  “This little girl may have worse.”

  “She has grown up in a most peculiar home, that’s for certain,” said Helena with some force. “Her grandparents will have been married by a strange old formal ceremony, and as they were the Flamen Dialis and the Flaminica, even their house itself had ritual significance. No child in such a home knows a normal upbringing. The daily life of the priest and priestess is proscribed by ridiculous taboos and rituals at every turn. It leaves little time for family matters. Even the children formally take part in religious ceremonies—presumably, Gaia’s father went through all that. And now Gaia, the poor mite, is being pushed into becoming a Vestal Virgin—”

  “An escape, by the sound of it!” I grinned.

  “She is six,” growled Helena. She was right. That was no age to be removed from home and subjected to thirty years of sanctity.

  “Do I take it, Helena, you intend to investigate?”

  “I want to.” She felt wretched, which always unsettled me. “I just don’t see how to go about it yet.”

  She was broody all day, not ready yet to share her further thoughts. I applied myself to clearing up goose droppings. Helena had made it clear that this was a daily rite which ancient traditions decreed could only be carried out by the Procurator of Poultry.

  *

  Dinner that evening came as a relief. The one thing to say for the noble Camilli was that, despite their financial problems, they dined well. In that, they far excelled most Roman millionaires.