Graveyard of the Hesperides Read online

  Now they worked here, taking customers upstairs. They did not mind telling us. They said someone had to do it, though the job was disgusting, the old landlord wanted horrible favors and the new one was a shitty nobody, while both then and now their earnings stank. No need to ask of what.

  Faustus questioned them about their hopes for the future. They responded to him better than I expected, saying they would go home, but they still owed fare money to the man who brought them here, a toothless drover in a hairy cloak who had told them he knew their parents. Everything he said was shit. However, they were scared of him and what he could do to their families. Besides, in their hearts they still hankered to find those golden opportunities the legionaries had promised, which they still believed existed somewhere.

  While they were answering Faustus, I tried to gauge how old they were. They pretended to be nymphs but had the faces of hags. This was a common result of poverty, let alone the work they did. Bad diet and degradation had left both with poor skin, dull eyes, bruises, pocks and a washed-out, gray appearance under whatever poisonous potions they painted on. I could see a lot of that; they would die before their time. But they were too young to have known Rufia.

  They were too young to die too, though I concede that was irrelevant to my inquiry.

  They confirmed they never met the missing woman. However, they knew people who had. Well, for one thing, they screwed Nipius and Natalis. From the waiters, if from no one else, they had heard the rumors about their luckless predecessor’s fate.

  “Was she Dardanian, or any other kind of foreigner?”

  “Who knows?” said Artemisia.

  “I do!” boasted Orchivia. “She was a shitty Illyrian.”

  “Who the buggery told you that?” demanded her colleague scornfully.

  “Menendra.”

  “What does she know?”

  “She knew Rufia.”

  “Shit!”

  “Is there,” I interposed quickly, “any way I can speak to this Menendra?”

  A shadow came over Artemisia and Orchivia, as if they regretted mentioning her.

  “She’s around,” Orchivia muttered. “Off and on.”

  “Well, if you see her, will you please push her my way?”

  Orchivia said she might do, though Artemisia looked as if she did not like the idea that this other woman might find out they had been talking about Rufia with me.

  “Is Menendra another scary one, like Rufia?” I asked, on the off chance. They laughed. They were pretending to dismiss that suggestion—while obviously agreeing with it.

  “Does she also serve drinks at the Hesperides?”

  “No.”

  “Where then?”

  “Nowhere special.”

  “So how does she earn a living—assuming she doesn’t own a fancy man?” Few waitresses had pimps; in general their custom was straightforwardly controlled by the bar owners, who saw no reason to let others muscle in.

  “She supplies the bars,” said Artemisia.

  “Supplies what?” asked Faustus, butting in. He so much adored finicky detail.

  I like detail myself; I prefer to work up to it my own way. “Supplies what?” I echoed, putting my own stamp on the question.

  “Anything they need,” Orchivia replied dismissively.

  “That’s nice and vague.”

  Both women gave high-shouldered shrugs, as if my insistence was unreasonable. What passed for expressive in Dardania meant nothing in Rome. Faustus and I stared.

  “Fruit,” explained Artemisia glibly. “Menendra is a fruit-seller.”

  That, I felt certain, was a barefaced Dardanian lie.

  *

  Getting nowhere, and hoping I could track down Menendra myself, I went back to Rufia. Did the women have any idea of when she disappeared? Surprisingly, they put a date on it. Someone had told them it happened in the first year of the Emperor Titus. Titus only reigned for two years, which was sad for him, but helpful here.

  I joked with Faustus, “I remember his inauguration, plus all the festivities when he opened the Flavian Amphitheater, made it necessary for bars to obtain a great deal of fruit!”

  “Happy hour,” he returned lightheartedly. “Raining pomegranates. Cornucopia with every wine cup. Can you two remember anything else about when Rufia disappeared?”

  Artemisia and Orchivia reminded him they had not been in Rome then; it was even before they left their mountainous birthplace and went north to sell their valuable young virginities to the Fifth Macedonica and other fine legions in the Danube forts.

  “Despite the pleas of your weeping relatives?” Faustus suggested, being wicked as he went back to probing their lives.

  “Oh, they couldn’t see us off fast enough.”

  “They were heartbroken but they knew none of us had anything else to sell; for everyone’s benefit we had to sacrifice our little cherries. We were young. We looked as if we could be real virgins.”

  “And how many times did you manage to peddle those precious commodities before the randy soldiers twigged?”

  “About six or seven.”

  Orchivia claimed she could still sell hers if she put her mind to it, on a good night in winter when the lamps weren’t lit.

  Artemisia laughed hysterically at that. Then she mused, “One trumpeter bought mine twice.”

  “Why was that?” inquired Faustus. “Because he enjoyed it so much the first time?” For a serious man, he could come out with comments that were very funny. But only I saw the joke.

  These were hard, untrustworthy, filthy, foreign working girls, yet Tiberius and I were in danger of feeling sorry for them. They, on the other hand, would lie, dodge, and diddle us at every opportunity. I saw no likelihood of squeezing anything more useful out of Artemisia and Orchivia today, so I said they could be off to wait at tables in the Four Limpets or wherever they had employment.

  “The Brown Toad.”

  “Juno! You don’t care what dump you work in … I expect you know the old phrase, don’t leave town.”

  They looked puzzled.

  *

  As they were leaving, their paths crossed with those of two very different damsels. Strangely, both pairs nodded as they passed, each without being at all affronted by the other.

  Artemisia and Orchivia sashayed off, while we were joined by a dainty couple of young girls who shrieked, “Ooh what a horrible place!” They were thrilled.

  The Dardanians called back over their saucily bare shoulders that the Hesperides was indeed shitty. I would get the blame at home for this: my little sisters had learned a new catchphrase. “Just so shitty!”

  Orchivia popped back. “If you two think you’re going to work here, don’t even try it. We own the franchise!”

  I could feel Tiberius shaking with laughter.

  XIV

  Julia Junilla Laeitana had been given a third name because she was born in Spain where our father had had to deliver the baby himself and save our mother from near death—as he boringly reminded us on occasions. After these horrors, he badly needed to swig the local Laeitana wine and named his firstborn after it.

  Sosia Favonia was birthed at home by our two sober grandmothers, so only had two names, but that suited her because she was traditional; a private, austere girl, she regarded her sister as frivolous, not least for her excess of names. She was called Sosia for a long-dead cousin. There was some tragedy involved, so nobody used it. Don’t ask me to explain: some long-ago family business.

  Julia was sixteen, tall and slim, desperately bright. Favonia was fourteen, sturdy and gruff, with deep-grained, practical intelligence. I was old enough for us never to have squabbled; I had lived elsewhere for much of their childhood. When I visited home, they often did my hair, or altered my clothes and jewelry, as if I were a big doll in their toy collection. I loved them to bits.

  These were my daft, spoiled, innocent, lovely young sisters, who were ecstatic to be roped in by Faustus for our wedding. No one had entrusted anything imp
ortant to them before. They were arranging things better than I ever would, though with no regard for my wishes, my father’s willingness to pay or my mother’s good taste in social matters. It was the best fun they had ever had—and now they had capped that by coming to a shitty bar where they were hoping to see dead people.

  “How did you get here?” I nagged. “Don’t tell me you walked, not down the Argiletum?”

  They had seen we had a bench, so were busy sorting out another for themselves. Soon the building site looked like a picnic spot. Julia took charge. “We did walk. Good heavens, that’s an interesting street. Wigs and false teeth!”

  Along the Argiletum, they would have tripped past barbers and slave-sellers, butchers, linen merchants, makers of iron goods and suppliers of all kinds of food. The teeth and wigs were certainly exotic, but oh dear gods, not as colorful as the whores, bumboys and people who called themselves actors and were openly bisexual. I hoped the girls would not go home to our concerned parents all full of it. But I knew they would.

  “Who were those fascinating women who left just now?” demanded Favonia. “What is the job they warned us off?”

  “Prostitutes. You couldn’t do it. You don’t have the application and you’re both too squeamish.”

  “But it is steady work,” suggested Faustus. I was really discovering his provocative side today. “They were telling us just now how their speciality is selling their virginity.”

  “Oh, that’s so neat! How much could we make with ours?” asked Julia, apparently a serious question.

  I growled. “Not enough to buy you dress pins.”

  The girls sat down side by side on their bench (having thoroughly dusted it) and smiled at us. Neither had yet realized how beautiful they were, not even Favonia, who was the more observant; thank goodness for the murkiness of mirrors. They had dark hair, dark eyes, strappy sandals, fluttery stoles, complicated girdles they had created themselves from streamers of ribbon, and so much jewelry I knew they must have sneaked out of the house without Mother spotting them. The whiffs of peculiar perfume were ripe. Flies were dropping dead all over the courtyard.

  “Who brought you? Please don’t tell me you came unescorted.”

  “No, no, don’t fuss, Albia. We have Katutis.”

  “Where is he?” Favonia mouthed, anticipating my next demand. “Outside, talking to Dromo.” Father’s Egyptian secretary and Faustus’ awkward slave had struck up an unlikely alliance while Dromo was guarding some scrolls Faustus had “borrowed” from his uncle and Katutis was transcribing the transaction history of Faustus’ inheritance.

  “Tiberius is such a nice man,” said Julia, apparently to me, though she was aiming the compliment at him. “But have you noticed him slyly getting people to do things for him? He is very clever, Albia!”

  “Rich boy,” I answered. Faustus smiled easily, unfazed by my sister’s outspokenness. Or even by mine. “So, gorgeous girlies, update me on my horrible wedding plans.”

  “Leave it to us. Just turn up and let it happen,” commanded Favonia sternly. I told you she was practical.

  “You will enjoy it, you will, you will!” Julia pleaded, desperate for me to do so.

  I snorted that I was taking an interest and that I had myself arranged the augury. Like Faustus, they shrieked about duplication. I described the victimarii, laying it on thick. Wide-eyed, they backed down. They even wanted to be taken along to Costus’ office to inspect the heavenly hunks right now. I vetoed that.

  Instead, Favonia ran out to Katutis, returning with a set of note tablets from which she and Julia read aloud selected items. I tried suggesting that because I had to investigate the courtyard bones, we should delay the ceremony. My sisters cheerfully slapped me down. They had already chosen the date for me. They were the wedding planners; I was merely the bride.

  They reminded me of their limited options. The Kalends, Nones and Ides of every month, plus the day following each, were unlucky. Various extra religious events interfered. August had a great festival of Diana on the Aventine; it also had a celebration of Consus, a fertility god, in which all the beasts of burden were given a day off, prettily garlanded, then led about the very streets we would be needing for our own procession; among other things in the calendar, there was one of the days when the entrance to the Underworld was believed to be open, so we had to avoid any danger of ghosts popping out. Even more importantly, in September Faustus would be one of the officials organizing the Roman Games, which would take all his time and concentration. Julia and Favonia pointed this out to me, much as if I was failing in my wifely duties by not trying to relieve him of stress.

  “Obviously I shall take care of Tiberius when he comes home exhausted from the races and plays.”

  “No, you must be right at his side through all the events! Flavia Albia, it will be to his public credit if he is a proper married man.” Being paraded at festivals as his domestic dear was a role I might dodge. As he listened to the chatter, Tiberius twinkled at the thought. He did know what he was in for with me. I, however, had not previously considered the full horror of being an aedile’s wife.

  I had one more possible weapon. “I believe a widow who is remarrying, by tradition, ought to choose a public holiday or major festival in order to conceal her shame that, instead of being a one-man woman, she is committing the social blunder of a second marriage.”

  “Ha! Don’t try it!” scoffed Julia.

  Favonia leaned forward. She explained to me as if to a dimwit: “The purpose of your wedding, Albia darling, is to demonstrate publicly that the brave Tiberius Manlius Faustus is committing himself to you, our eccentric sister, and that from now on he wants you to be invited to supper parties with him. Even though we have told him you will be rude to his friends.”

  “So he thinks I’m starving; it’s to get me more prawn nibbles?” I chortled.

  Favonia rolled her eyes at my beloved. “We warned you. She is incorrigible. If you want to back out, do so now before it’s too late and the wedding guests are traveling.”

  “Ah, but she is the woman for me!” He took my hand tenderly but firmly.

  My sisters then looked at each other, miming This is just so-o-o romantic! It lasted a few moments before they lost interest. They had known me since they were babies. In some ways they found it inconceivable that I might have a love life—let alone with a man they had come to perceive as very old (by their standards) yet nevertheless nice (even by their standards).

  He took them seriously. They liked that. In fact, they had slightly grown up while fixing this wedding for him. I knew our parents were impressed.

  *

  The madcaps had been talking about one subject for as long as they could manage. Now they turned to what had really lured them here from the Aventine.

  “Can we see the bones?”

  I frowned. It made no difference. “Show some respect, Julia.”

  “We do. We know it was a person once. We want her poor spirit to rest easy. But can we see the bones, can we? Is that them there, in that basket Tiberius has under his seat?”

  Before we could stop them, they flew across the courtyard, pulled out the rubble basket and like competent navvies carried it over to their own bench. In fairness, they opened it carefully. They could have tipped it out all over the yard, but of their own accord they spent time lifting out each bone, or piece of bone, individually. They handled each with cautious reverence.

  Julia and Favonia set out the collection on the ground, to some extent composing a skeleton. Father’s work as an informer meant they had acquired strange gobbets of knowledge, anatomy being just one subject they would one day have to conceal from respectable husbands. Pa had taught them to play dice too. Favonia even had her own—she had filched a set of counterfeit ones that turned up once at the auction house.

  Now they were absorbed, heads together, as they pored over the remnants of the skeleton.

  “Where is her skull?”

  Good point. These flighty bits coul
d notice significant things. A skull certainly ought to survive in the ground, if other bones do. The workmen had not found it.

  “Her head is not here. This will not do! There needs to be more digging,” declared Favonia. Julia always seemed to be the leader but Favonia was a born organizer. Then it was she, my thoughtful youngest sister, who noticed something else, something crucial: “Look, this is not right. These leg bones are different sizes. Either the barmaid was deformed, or the bones come from two different people.”

  XV

  I let Tiberius tell my disappointed sisters that they could not come with us to see Morellus. We were seeking a favor, so it would be bad practice to arrive in a noisy crowd. We would need to flatter Morellus. “Albia will need to restrain herself. This won’t be the moment for her to tell him his faults.”

  I bridled. “Husband-to-be, are you chastising me?”

  “Never, my darling!”

  “How wise of you, Aedile.”

  I watched Julia and Favonia accept what Tiberius said as they would never have done with most people. Instead, while we walked along in a posse, I was treated to a list of wedding guests. I had the odd experience, even though Tiberius was here, of my own sisters enlightening me on his family relationships: “First, Uncle Tullius. He is a famous molester, so if we talk to him we always have to make sure there are two of us there.” I saw Tiberius wince, though he did not dispute the description.

  “That’s if he comes. He may not, because of Tiberius demanding his property rights.”

  “No, it will be all right. Father went to smooth things over.”

  “I’d like to have been at that meeting!” I commented, stepping around a recumbent beggar.