JUPITER MYTH Page 5

  Helena took my hand. "You're brooding again."

  "Can't help it."

  "I know, darling. One day all trace of what happened will vanish. It would be worse if everything had been made good immediately."

  "Insensitive," I agreed.

  "One of the saddest things I ever heard," Helena mused gently, "is how the governor raced here to assess the situation, just before the furious tribes arrived. He knew he had insufficient troops and would be forced to sacrifice the town to save the province. So he closed his ears to pleas, but allowed those who wished to accompany him and the cavalry. Then, we were told afterwards, 'Those who stayed, because they were women, or old, or attached to the place, were all slaughtered.' Some people were attached to Londinium, Marcus. It made them stay to face certain death. That's heartrending."

  I told her they were idiots. I said it gently. What I thought was worse, but she knew that. There was no need to be coarse.

  Looking around, as we searched to rediscover the sad bar called the Shower of Gold, it seemed perverse for anyone to feel sentimentality for this town. The community had no aediles to oversee street cleaning or repairs. A few far-from-graceful porticoes offered red-tiled roofs, not so much for shade as storm protection. Lights were a luxury. In a couple of hours I would be getting out of here fast.

  "Is that the place?" asked Helena.

  "You've never been here," I muttered.

  "No, but I can read a signboard, darling."

  I peered at the crude fresco, with its vague representation of light streaming through a tip-tilted window. The paint had weathered so much I was surprised Hilaris ever spotted the name. We went in. The lintel was low-slung. Most customers must be midgets with rickets.

  The serving girl, whose short legs I remembered, was missing. The taverner himself stared at us as we entered. He seemed to wonder what we wanted, coming in his bar, but that's regular. It happens in Rome too. To serve the public requires a special type: unwelcoming, obtuse, inaccurate with coinage, and very deaf when called. Some informers are no better equipped. But most do have good feet. His were embossed with corns, and he had at least one toe missing. I could see this because there was no counter; he just perched on a stool.

  We found our own table. Easy-there was only one. Since we were supposed to be a couple traveling, Helena took the purse from me and went to order. I sat and smiled, like a man who could not manage foreign currency and who would drink more than he was used to, if his wife let him loose.

  She dropped the fresh-off-the-boat routine immediately and chose her own approach. "I don't think we'll have wine today. I hear yours suffers from interesting additives!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Bodies."

  "Word gets round," replied the landlord dourly. "So what happened?"

  "Nobody saw." He spurned gossip It could have been for the sake of his establishment, had it any reputation to protect.

  "We just had to come and see the scene… Have you any fresh fruit juice?" Even I winced. Helena was forgetting she was in Britain.

  "We only serve wine." Her request was out of place, but he held back any sarcastic riposte. Too sophisticated-or just too much effort.

  "Oh, we'll risk it!"

  "Nothing wrong with our wine. The man drowned in the well," the dour fellow corrected her.

  "Oh! Can we see the well?" she demanded excitedly.

  He gestured to the yard door, pushed a jug at her, and left us to our own devices.

  Helena went out to peer quickly down the well, then came back to our table with the jug.

  "Cups, darling?" I teased, playing to a nonexistent audience, but the landlord had brought them, with overobvious efficiency. "Thanks, Legate!" I poured and tipped a cup to him. He gave me a brusque nod. "Sorry," I murmured sympathetically. "You must be sick of sightseers."

  He made no comment, only sucked a blackened tooth. He went back to stand in silence among his amphorae in a corner, staring at us. I would normally have tried chatting with other customers-but there were none. And it was impossible to talk to Helena while the man was listening.

  Now we were stuck. Stuck in a dark drinking hole that lacked atmosphere: a small square room with a couple of seats, about three shapes of wine flagon, no snacks evident, and a man serving who could crack marble with his stare. Once again I wondered why Verovolcus, a happy soul who was oppressively convivial, would ever have come here. The woman this morning had sworn nobody knew who he was or remembered him. But if tonight's effort represented normal trade, it would be impossible to forget. The landlord must have had time to count the stitches on Verovolcus' tunic braid.

  He would certainly remember me, right down to the fact that I had forty-seven hairs in my left eyebrow. Uncomfortable, we drank up and prepared to leave.

  With nothing to lose, as I paid him I bantered: "The Shower of Gold-I wish I had Zeus popping in at the window in a heap of cash! He could sleep with anyone he liked." The landlord looked bemused. "You named your winery after a myth," I pointed out.

  "It was called that when I came here," he snarled.

  As we reached the doorway, people emerged from a dark passage that

  seemed to lead upstairs. One was a man who slipped straight out past me, adjusting his belt buckle in a way that was all too recognizable. He must be desperate; his companion was the barroom waitress. She was as ugly as I remembered. The squat little monster chinked a couple of coins into the petty cash bowl, and the landlord hardly looked up.

  Servicing customers could be part of a waitress's duties, but usually the girls looked better. Not good, but better. Sometimes quite a lot better.

  She had seen me. "My girlfriend wanted to see the crime scene," I told her apologetically.

  "We're going to charge for tickets," snapped the waitress. To the landlord she added unpleasantly, "He was here with the nobs this morning. Has he been asking more questions?" There was no need to warn him; he knew how to refuse to cooperate. She rounded on me again. "We told you what we know, and it's nothing. Don't come again-and don't bother sending your pals."

  "What pals? I sent nobody."

  Both waitress and landlord were now a little too truculent. We took the hint and left.

  "Was that a waste of time, Marcus?" Helena asked demurely. "I don't know." Probably.

  "So what shall we do now?"

  "Use a trick of the trade."

  "Like what?" asked Helena.

  "When you learn nothing in the first wine bar, try another one."

  X

  Finding another was difficult. As a kindness to my lady I tried working back uphill, toward what passed for better parts of town. No luck. "Better" was a misnomer anyway.

  We were forced to head back down toward the river, at one point even emerging onto a planked wharf. Nothing was moving on the water; we were right by a ferry landing point, yet it seemed a lonely spot. We retreated hastily. Up the next steep entry we hit a row of shops. Most seemed to sell either pottery or olive oil, the oil in the great round-bottomed Spanish amphorae Helena and I knew well from a trip we had made to Baetica. Wine seemed a scarcer commodity on public sale, but there was evidence that everyone in Londinium had access to the fine golden oil from Corduba and Hispalis. If everyone had it, presumably the stuff was sold at a reasonable price. Then from a street corner we spotted a small brown-tinged bay tree; half its leaves had been shredded by moths and its lead shoot was broken, but it seemed to serve the same advertising purpose as greenery outside any foodshop in the Mediterranean.

  As we arrived, a waiter or the proprietor stepped outdoors and spoke to a bundle who was scavenging on his frontage. He was not abusive, but she scuttled off. I took it as a good sign that he repelled vagrants. We went inside.

  Warmth hit us: bodies and lamps. It was much bigger and better lit than our first venue. A wine list had been chalked up on a wall, though there was nothing I recognized. The man who served us made no reference to the list, just offered red or white, with the extra option of be
er. Helena, still in character, thought it would be fun to try British beer. Petro and I had done that in our youth; I asked for red. I wanted a water jug as well. With a head still sore from this afternoon, I was going gently. The waiter managed not to sneer. Roman habits were clearly not new to him.

  This time we sat quietly, relaxed as we waited for our drinks. We gazed around. Both waiters here were thin, slight, hollow-cheeked, hardworking types with balding crowns, glossy black face hair, and lugubrious eyes. They did not look British, more likely from Spain or the East. So here was another establishment staffed by migrants. Who knows how many miles they had traveled, humping their possessions, their hopes, and their past history, to end up running a cheap bar that lay on the other side of everywhere. Their customers represented a shifting population too. Some were traders by their appearance: tanned, competent businessmen locked in conversations in twos and threes. None looked like Britons. The locals skulked at home. Places of entertainment in this town were catering for outsiders. As long as that continued, the province could hardly be civilized. It would just be a trading post.

  Nearest to us was a man who reminded me of Silvanus' claim that Londinium was attracting oddballs. He was wrapped in many layers, with old rope for a belt around coarse trews, his skin ingrained with dirt, his hair lank and straggly.

  "Want a doggie?" he demanded, as Helena made the mistake of Watching him feed tidbits to a lean cur at his feet. The dog looked disgusting and whined unhappily.

  "No, we have one already, thanks." I was relieved that we had locked Nux in the bedroom before we came out. Pupped in an alley, Nux had moved up in the world when she adopted me, but she still liked making playmates of mongrels with bad characters.

  "This boy's very smart."

  "No, really. Ours is already a handful."

  He dragged his stool nearer, scraping it sideways on two legs. A leech who had found new victims. "British dogs are magic," this dire parasite claimed proudly. Was he British, or just loyal to the commodity he hawked? Unlike other customers here, I thought he could be genuine. Which poor tribe did he belong to? Was he some unwanted lag kicked out of the enclosure by the Trinovantes or a reprobate shoved off a hill-fort by fastidious Dubonni? In any culture, he would be the long-lost grisly uncle, the one everybody dreads. At Saturnalia, or the tribes' equivalent, they no doubt spoke of him and shuddered, looking quickly over their shoulders in case he came limping home up the trail sucking grass in the huge gap between those awful teeth… "I sell as many as I can get, easy. Marvels. If you, fine lady, bought one of these-" A clawlike hand crept into the neck of his lowest undertunic, then scratched slowly. The dog at his feet, raddled with sarcoptic mange, joined in. Most of the fur was gone from its haunches; you could see every rib. For both of them the scratching was unconscious and continual. "I guarantee you'd get your money back four or five times over, selling it again in Rome or some big place."

  "That's wonderful. Still, no thank you."

  He paused. Then tried again gamely. "He'll be perfect if your husband hunts."

  "No, he doesn't hunt, I'm afraid."

  "Sure?" She was sure. So was I, damn it. A city boy, I would rather go to the races any day.

  The filthy salesman nodded at me secretly. I was being blamed for Helena's resistance. "Bit of a tight-arse, is he?"

  Helena smiled at me, considering. I smiled back. Then she told her new friend, "Maybe. But I love him. He thinks he's a man of the streets; don't disillusion him."

  "Illusions!" warbled the dogman loudly. "We all need illusions, don't we?" Other customers glanced our way, pitied us for being trapped, then buried their snouts in their beakers. "Cherish your illusions, queenly one-lest the dark gods steal you to Hades unfulfilled!"

  He was crazy. On the other hand, he could deal in abstract concepts and multisyllable definitions. I groaned. Did we have that gruesome icon, a man once wealthy, a man of intellect and background, who had fallen on hard times? Had he and his poetic soul been brought low by inadequacy of character, bad financial luck-or drink?

  No, he was low-grade; he just liked selling dogs. He thought he would make a fortune passing off his lame, wormy hounds to dumb Romans. He hoped he might even sell one to Helena and me. Tough luck, dog-sharp.

  Two men came in. The one in front was short and solid, the other was leaner and kept looking around. They were known to the proprietors. They disappeared with the senior waiter through a curtain to some inner recess. I heard raised voices. A short time afterward the two men emerged and left, unsmiling, walking rapidly. The waiter came out. He muttered briefly to his companion. Both looked hot and angry.

  Most customers failed to notice. It was all quite discreet.

  Helena had watched me watching them. "What do you think that was?"

  "Market gardeners selling parsley."

  "Protection rackets? Moneylenders?" Helena thought along the same lines as me. "Do you think the owner paid them?"

  "Difficult to tell."

  "If he did, he did not want to-and he made his feelings known."

  "If he paid up, fruit, those bagman won't care about his attitude."

  "And if not?"

  "Presumably they will be back-to ensure he changes his mind."

  We were speaking in low voices, ignoring the dogman. He knew enough to leave us to our confidential talk. Maybe he listened. It made no difference to me. If there were heavies leaning on shop owners, the sooner the better for them to learn that someone was checking up on them.

  The waiters went around the tables, busying themselves. They served the dogman and several others automatically, so those must be regulars. This seemed a place to pick up local atmosphere, so we lingered. I accepted a refill and snacks. Helena was still progressing slowly through her beer; she would not admit to a mistake, though my guess was she did not care for it. The waiter expected her to leave half the beaker, but she would finish. Then she would say thank you very nicely when she left.

  Helena Justina might be a senator's daughter, but she was my kind of girl. I grinned and winked at her. She belched modestly.

  I leaned back and grabbed olives from a bowl on a table behind me. The tidbits may have been communal. I acted as if I assumed so and got into conversation with the two men sitting there. They were negotiators, shifting supplies north for the army; then they took cattle hides south. The first part was profitable, they told me; the hides acted as ballast, filling their ships with flies. They had thought about transporting slaves instead, but there were too many problems. I joked that they should go into partnership with the dog trader-at which point the conversation died.

  Helena had been watching the scavenger we saw earlier. That whey-faced skinny mite had now sneaked back inside; this time the waiters let her alone. Whenever customers departed, she wafted like a sylph to their table then devoured any food they left. There was rarely drink. One man leaned toward her and asked something; she shook her head. It may have been a sexual approach or he could have just asked if it was raining outdoors.

  Nothing much seemed to be happening, so next time our beakers were empty I paid up and we took off. Outside, the streets were growing very dark. The temperature was balmy, though nowhere near as hot as Rome would be on an August night. There was no street life, just mosquitoes to smack. They had learned to head into town from the marshes at dusk for a bloody feast. Something had nipped my ankle badly, and Helena kept imagining they were dancing in her hair.

  Helena took my arm to steady both of us as we walked. It took some time to find another bar to crawl to. In Rome there would be a foodshop counter on the street every few yards, and probably an inside drinking den on every block. You would not have to keep stopping to shake pea-grit from your shoes either. Londinium had paved roads, but most of its back alleys were rough underfoot. The town was built on gravel and brick earth. There were plenty of tile and brick kilns, and the old wattle-and-daub huts were being replaced with timber and brick dwellings. But I was yearning to walk on great warm slabs of
Travertine. I needed a pee too.

  Not finding a venue that offered hygienic facilities, the issue was sorted in ways you need not know.

  "What about me?" grizzled Helena. The perpetual beef of a woman on holiday in a strange town. I was the paterfamilias. My role was to find her somewhere. Like most holiday husbands, I had made my own arrangements and now lost interest. This aspect of the situation was pointed out to me.

  "Are you desperate?" They always are. Still, we sorted that too, once she was desperate enough. We found a dark place and I stood on guard.

  "That's true love," she thanked me gratefully.

  The next time we ventured into what looked like a wine bar, it turned out to be a brothel. They had a table and two chairs outside, as enticement and camouflage, but once we stepped indoors we knew. We saw little sign of activity, but there was every appearance that business was good. As soon as I spotted the teenage scrubbers at the ready, white-faced in their drop-necked frocks and glass bead anklets, we backed out with polite smiles.

  The madam did look British. All over the world, this is the first trade to develop when civilization hits the backward barbarians. Widows, for one, are quick to catch on. Widows and unmarried mothers who have to call themselves widows. This one had a direct manner and tired professional eyes. She had probably serviced soldiery outside Roman forts long before she set up here in the town.

  Maybe the house of love gave us ideas. Not long after that, Helena and I stopped on a street intersection, moved close, and kissed. It was a long tender kiss, not lustful, but full of enjoyment.