'Why? Business was business, bed was bed.' This topic was too uncomfortable.
'Marina, I'm trying to remember things myself. Was he restless on that last visit to Rome? Preoccupied? Anxious about anything?'
She shrugged.
She could. She didn't have Petronius Longus writing her name on a certificate of arrest while Marponius hopped from one foot to another just waiting to bang his seal ring on it.
'Well you were there!' smirked Marina. The implication was pointed, and quite unnecessary.
At this point a neighbour galloped in, carrying my niece. Marina seized the child with a relieved glance of thanks, the neighbour fled, and we all prepared for trouble. Marcia looked around, assessed the audience like a professional, then threw back her head and screamed.
Marina was bluffing madly as she tried to soothe her offspring. 'See what you've done, Marcus.' She was a fond, though vague mother, who suffered unreasonably at Marcia's hands. Marcia had never been one to co-operate. She had a keen sense of occasion. She knew exactly when a tormented wail could make her mother appear like a monster. 'She was perfectly happy. She likes going to play at Statia's-'
'She's showing off as usual. Give her here!'
As Marina weakly passed the child to me, Helena intercepted. Marcia fell into her arms like a galley hitting dock, then stopped screaming and settled on Helena's lap looking blissfully good. It was a fraud, but well timed to make both her mother and uncle feel inadequate. 'Let me see what I can do with her,' Helena murmured innocently. 'Then you two can talk.' She knew Marcia. They made a fine pair of conspirators.
'She loves it at Statia's,' Marina muttered again defensively.
I was annoyed. 'You mean she loves dressing up in filthy cast-off rags, and being allowed to eat the musical bars out of the ex-priest's sistrum!'
'You don't know that they neglect her.'
'I do know I've seen Marcia do an impressive imitation of Statia falling over drunk!' She also liked singing obscene hymns to Isis and mimicking suggestive rites. The child was a natural for the low life.
Lindsey Davis
Poseidon's Gold
Marcia gazed lovingly at Helena, as if all this was news to her. Helena kissed her curly head consolingly. 'Don't worry, darling. It's only Uncle Marcus having one of his quaint fits.'
I growled. No one was impressed.
I sank on to a stool, burying my head in my arms.
'Uncle Marcus is crying!' giggled Marcia, intrigued. Helena whispered something, then put her down so Marcia could run to me. She flung her fat arms round my neck and gave me a smacking wet kiss. A worrying smell of wine lees hung around her. 'Uncle Marcus needs a shave.' She was a frank, open-hearted child. Maybe that was why I worried about her. She would be a frank, open-hearted woman one day.
I picked her up. She always seemed tougher and heavier than I expected. Marina had hung a tawdry bead anklet on one chubby foot and let Marcia paint red spots on her cheeks. Somebody, probably at Statia's, had given her a grotesque amulet. I had to close my mind to these details or I would have really lost my temper.
Holding my brother's oddly solid child, I tried reconstructing his last night in Rome yet again. Marina had said it: I was there all right. Any clues should be apparent to me, if only I could remember them.
'I do reckon he was edgy.' I was trying to convince myself. Marina only shrugged again in her distant, disinterested way. With those shoulders and that bust, she went in for shrugs on principle. The principle was: knock 'em dead. 'Old Festus was skipping on his toes that last night. Olympus knows what caused it, though. I doubt if it was the thought of going back to Judaea. He didn't care if the arrows were flying; he thought he could duck. Marina, do you remember that gang of ghastly wall artists he picked up?'
'I remember the girl at the Circus Max!' Marina said, with force. 'I'm damned sure he picked her up!'
'Can't say I noticed,' I mumbled, trying to avoid a scene. Helena was watching us with the tolerant expression of an intellectual at Pompey's Theatre enduring the ghastly farce while awaiting a serious Greek tragedy. If she had had a handful of almonds, she would have been eating them one at a time with the tips of her teeth. 'Marina, think about those graffiti merchants. They were gruesome. Where did they come from? I assumed he didn't know them, but are we sure?'
'Festus knew everyone. If he didn't know them when he went into the bar, he would know them by the time he left.'
Making cronies of a barful of people was his signature. 'He had his moments, but normally he drew the line at slaves and wall painters. He was making out to us that those posers were strangers. Did you know them yourself?'
'Just some tricksters at the Virgin. Their usual ghastly clientele-'
'The Virgin?' I had forgotten the name. Festus would have thought it a great joke. 'Is that where we ended up?'
'It's a terrible place.'
'That part I remember.'
'I'd never seen them before.'
'It must be quite near here. Do you still hang around there?'
'Only if somebody pays me to go.' Marina was as frank as her winsome child.
'Have you ever seen those artists again?'
'Not that I recall. Mind you, if I was desperate enough to be in the Virgin, I was probably too tipsy to spot my own grandmother.'
'Or you wouldn't want your granny to spot you.' Even at eighty-four Marina's old granny would have made a good Praetorian Guard. She liked hitting first and asking questions afterwards. She was three feet high, and her right upper-cut was legendary.
'Oh no! Granny drinks at the Four Fish,' Marina solemnly put me right.
I sighed, gently.
XX
Helena could see I was growing exasperated at the way this conversation jerked about.
'What we need to ascertain,' she intervened, in a tone so reasonable I felt my left foot kick out angrily, 'is whether Didius Festus was contacting somebody in particular on his last home leave. Somebody who can tell us what his plans were. Why are you asking about the artists, Marcus? He could have been arranging business at any time during his leave. Was there really something special about his last night-and about that group?'
Suddenly Marina declared, 'There certainly was!' I started to feel hot. She was oozing indiscretion, though it did not come immediately. 'For one thing,' she said, 'Festus was jumping like a cat on a griddle. You noticed that-you just said so, Marcus. That wasn't like him. Normally he breezed into places and stirred everyone else up, but he let the excitement flow over him.'
'That's true. And he could hardly wait to drag us on from one bar to the next. Normally once he got comfortable he wouldn't shift. That night he kept dodging on to new squats every five minutes.'
'As if he was looking for someone?' suggested Helena quietly.
'For another thing,' Marina pressed on inexorably, 'there was the little matter of him sending me off with you!'
'We don't need to resurrect that,' I said. Well, I had to try.
'Don't mind me,' smiled Helena. The knives were out all round.
'Suit yourself,' sniffed Marina. 'But Marcus, if you really want to know what he was up to that evening, I think this little incident needs considering.'
'Why?' Helena asked her, bright with unhealthy interest.
'It's obvious. It was a blatant fix. He annoyed me over the brunette, then he got up sunshine's nose as well.'
'Doing what? What offended sunshine?'
'Oh I can't remember. Just Festus being himself, probably. He could behave like a short-arsed squit.'
I said, 'Looking back, I can see he was trying to get rid of both of us-despite the fact it was our last chance of seeing him, maybe for years.'
'You were both very fond of him?'
Marina threw up her hands elegantly. 'Oh gods, yes! We were both planning to stick to him like clams. He had no chance of keeping secrets. Even getting us to leave the Virgin was not safe enough. We would both have been back. Well, I would. If I had gone home and he hadn'
t turned up soon afterwards, I would have stormed out again looking for him-I knew where to look, too.'
Helena glanced at me for confirmation. 'Marina's right. Festus was often elusive, but we were used to it. She had dragged him away from drinks counters in the early hours of the morning on many occasions. It was their natural way of life.'
'What about you?'
'As it was his last night, once I sobered up a bit I might well have gone back to toast his health again. I knew his haunts as well as Marina did. If he wanted any privacy, then he had to shoot us off somewhere, and make it stick.'
'So he annoyed both of you deliberately, then threw you together?'
'Obvious!' Marina said. 'Marcus had always been jealous of Festus. This loon had been eyeing me up for years-so why did Festus suddenly present him with the goods after all that time?'
I felt surly. 'I seem to be coming out of this as weak, cheap, and sly.' They both looked at me in silence. 'Well thanks!'
Marina patted my wrist. 'Oh you're all right! Anyway, he owed you enough; no one could say otherwise. What about that business with your client?'
She genuinely puzzled me with that one. 'What client?'
'The woman who hired you to find her dog.' I had forgotten the damned dog. The female client now returned to mind quite easily-and not only because she was one of the first I ever had after I set up as an informer.
'It was a British hunting hound,' I told Helena hastily. 'Very valuable. Superb pedigree and could run like the wind. The daft creature was supposed to be guarding the woman's clothes at some bathhouse; a slave stepped on his tail accidentally and he ran off like stink down the Via Flaminia. The young lady was heartbroken…' It still sounded an unlikely tale.
'Well you've been in Britain!' Helena Justina said gently. She knew how to cast aspersions. 'I expect you have a special affinity with British dogs.' Oh yes. Lovely work for a professional; every informer ought to learn how to call 'Here boy!' in at least twelve languages. Five years later the jobs I was taking on seemed just as motley. 'Did you find him?' Helena pressed.
'Who?'
'The dog, Marcus.'
'Oh! Yes.'
'I bet your lady client was really grateful!' Helena understood more about my business than I liked.
'Come off it. You know I never sleep with clients.' She gave me a look; Helena had been my client once herself. Telling her she was different from all the others somehow never carried weight.
The woman in search of the lost doggie had had more money than sense and astounding looks. My professional ethics were of course unimpeachable-but I had certainly considered making a play for her. At the time big brother Festus had convinced me that tangling with the moneyed classes was a bad idea. Now Marina's words cast a subtle doubt. I gazed at her. She giggled. She obviously assumed I had known what was going on; now I finally saw the reason Festus had advised me to steer clear of the pretty dog owner: he had been bedding her himself.
'Actually,' I told Helena gloomily, 'it was Festus who found the bloody dog.'
'Of course it was,' Marina piped in. 'He had it tied up at my house all along. I was livid. Festus pinched it from the baths so he could get to know the fancy skirt.' My brother, the hero! 'Didn't you twig?'
'Ah Marcus!' Helena soothed me, at her kindest (not so kind as all that). 'I bet you never got your bill paid either?'
True.
I was feeling abused.
'Look, when you two have finished mocking, I have things to do today-'
'Of course you have,' smiled Helena, as if she was suggesting I should hide in a barrel for a few hours until my blushes cooled.
'That's right. Repolishing my grimy reputation won't be a quick job.' It was best to be straight with her, especially when she was sounding facetious but looking as if she was trying to remember where she last put the vial of rat poison.
I kissed Marcia resoundingly and gave the child back to her mother. 'Thanks for the hospitality. If you remember anything helpful, let me know at once. I'm due for the public strangler otherwise.' Helena stood up. I put my arm round her shoulders and said to Marina, 'As you see, my time should really be being taken up by this lovely girl.'
Helena permitted herself a complacent sniff.
'Are you two getting married?' Marina asked sympathetically.
'Of course!' we both chimed. As a couple we lied well.
'Oh that's nice! I wish you both every happiness.'
One thing must always be said for Marina: she had a good heart.
XXI
I informed Helena I had had enough supervision for one day and was going to my next appointment alone. Helena knew when to let me make a stand. I felt she acquiesced too graciously, but that was better than a fight in the open street.
We were virtually at her parents' house, so I took her for a daughterly visit. I made sure I escorted her to within sight of the door. Stopping for goodbyes gave me a chance to hold her hand. She could manage without consolation, but I needed it.
'Don't hate me, sweetheart.'
'No, Marcus.' She would be a fool not to view me with caution, however. Her face looked guarded. 'I always knew you had a colourful life behind you.'
'Don't judge me too harshly.'
'I think you're doing that yourself.' Maybe somebody had to. 'Marina seems a nice girl,' Helena said. I knew what that meant.
'You're hoping someone some day will snap her up.'
'I don't see why not.'
'I do. The men she hangs around with know she's not looking for a husband. It makes it easier for them-not having to worry about the fact they all have wives!'
Helena sighed.
We were standing on a corner of the great Appian Way. It was about as public as the Forum of the Romans on a quiet day. Brown-clad slaves with baskets and amphorae on their bent shoulders butted up the street in both directions trying to get in the way of five or six litters carrying ladies from refined homes. Workmen were chiselling unconvincingly at the dark bulk of the old aqueduct, the Aqua Marcia. A cart laden with marble slabs came by, struggling to mount the raised pavement as it lurched out of control. Three donkey-drovers waiting to overtake it, two old women with a goose, and the queue on a bench outside a barber's had tired of watching the cart and started to notice us.
To make the day memorable for everyone, I slid my arms around Helena Justina and kissed her. Rome is a city of sexual frankness, but even in Rome senators' daughters are rarely grappled on street corners by creatures who are obviously only one rank up from woodlice. I had caught her off guard. There was nothing she could do to stop me, and no reason for me to stop of my own accord. A small crowd collected.
When finally I let her go Helena became aware of the crowd. She remembered we were in the refined Capena Gate sector, home of her illustrious parents. 'There are rules, Falco!' she muttered hotly.
I had heard that in patrician circles husbands had to make appointments three days ahead if they wanted to embrace their wives. 'I know the rules. I felt like changing them.'
'Do it again, and I'll jab my knee somewhere painful.'
I kissed her again, so she applied the knee, though her nerve failed and it was too gentle to do damage. The crowd applauded anyway.
Helena looked upset; she thought she had hurt me. 'Goodbye Marcus!'
'Goodbye, my darling,' I responded in a pained croak. Now she suspected me of feigning.
Helena strode to her father's house in her most frosty style. I watched her right to the door, with my arms folded. While she waited for the porter, whose attentions at the door were always haphazard, she turned back furtively to check that I was gone. I grinned and then left, knowing she was safe. Her family would lend her an escort of slaves when she wanted to go back to the Aventine.
After the tension at Marina's I felt stiff and in need of action. I made a detour for some weight training. There was plenty for a man to do at the gymnasium. I managed to linger for hours.
'We're seeing a lot of this customer la
tely,' Glaucus commented in his wry way. 'You guessed it; the customer is trying to avoid his family!' Calmer, I nearly put off further investigation. But kissing Helena publicly in the street had reminded me of my preference for kissing her more privately. If Petronius decided to arrest me there would be no point struggling to rehouse us, but if I could manage to keep out of jail, new furniture for my wrecked apartment was a priority.
'Petronius was looking for you,' Glaucus warned me. My trainer had a restrained way of speaking that could play on my worst fears.
'Skip it. I'm avoiding Petro as well…'
I didn't care whether or not I interviewed my father, but Petronius Longus would never expect to find me in his company, so a visit to Geminus promised me some breathing-space. Besides, where my father was I might find a cheap bed. So I set off for the Saepta Julia.
With my cloak around my ears, I emerged from the bathhouse into the Forum, skulked past the Temple of Fortune below the Citadel, and furtively made for the Theatre of Marcellus, my starting-point for a hike into the Campus Martius. Everyone I passed seemed to look at me twice, as if my tunic had a foreign cut or my face was a suspicious shape.
Now that I was going to see Geminus my sour mood returned. I still felt restless. Little did I know I was heading for a chance to expend real energy.
Many public buildings have been inflicted on the Campus by men who thought they ought to be famous-all those pompously named theatres, baths, porticoes and crypts, with the occasional temple or circus to keep the tourists agape. I passed through without noticing them; I was too busy looking out for officers of the watch, in case Petronius had instructed them to look out for me.
The Saepta Julia lay between the Baths of Marcus Agrippa and a Temple of Isis; it had the Temple of Bellona at the end nearest my approach. I took a long detour round the Flaminian Circus, partly to stay unobtrusive. I was too bored to go straight up the road which reaches the Saepta the simple way. I came out near Pompey's Theatre, facing the long Porticus in front of it. I could hear a lot of noise, so I turned my boots that way.
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