Graveyard of the Hesperides

by Lindsey Davis

  “She could have kept to herself.”

  “Oh, she worked in a bar, Albia! No hope of keeping her legs crossed. She would have lost her job.”

  “She bore two little tots, apparently.”

  “And some.”

  “There were more?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “So she wasn’t young?”

  “She started young.”

  “They all do. Be fair—they have to, Gran. Whether it’s their own sad choice or they are slaves and shoveled into it. Did the other babies die naturally, or did she get rid of them? Did Rufia help her sort herself out?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I never did anything like that, and none of my daughters neither. Well,” said Prisca, being realistic. “As far as they ever told me.”

  I was still thinking about the barmaid’s little ones. “If it wasn’t Rhodina who picked up the two children that night, can you suggest anyone else?”

  Prisca shrugged. “Someone who wanted a ready-made family? Must have been someone who knew that Thales or someone had polished off that Rhodina and buried her. Then, since we live in a cruel world, most likely they thought they could make some money selling the brats to a slaver. I expect they were horrible, snively little things.” She implied “not like my grandchildren.” It was probably true, since her descendants would be chubby and contented on kidneys in a pastry lid, oozing with gravy …

  “I don’t suppose their lives were very happy,” I said. “Weren’t they very small? Yet old enough to be left with a minder. If they are still alive, they must be coming up to adulthood; they will remember nothing of their mother or her history.”

  “So you can’t expect to find them?” Until that moment I had not intended even to look. Damn. As an informer I was always picking up this kind of responsibility.

  “Only if I can learn who took them. It’s a very small chance.” Almost not worth bothering, Albia. Leave it alone!

  “It’s not their fault, the life they were born into. If anyone had known, people would have tried to do something for them, I expect. Our Gavius would have looked after them, he was silly enough. Put them down to sleep on a dog blanket. Added two bowls to the row…” She was sniffing now, buffing at her eyes irritably with the back of her wrist.

  “I know. Your grandson is a good one.”

  “The best.” She started crying properly. On principle she blamed the onions, but I was allowed to acknowledge what had really caused her tears.

  *

  I had to sit with her while she grieved over the danger her grandson was in. She refused fuss, so I stayed there very quietly.

  It struck me nothing is as simple as it looks. I could easily dismiss the Ten Traders and White Chickens as filthy enclaves of vice: all drink, prostitution, extortion and slave-trading, alien to respectable people like me and Tiberius. Yet he and I had both done things we would never talk about at dinner parties.

  And here, despite the rawness, it was still possible to expose pockets of normal family life. Some people had skills, held down regular jobs in the community at large. Walk in here, past the peculiar-sexed doll with the livid eyeliner, and you found an ordinary grandmother cooking up a stew using age-old peasant ingredients, utensils and methods. Comfort food, tasty and gelatinous, always with pearl barley because that was her way of doing it. She saw the vice, yet somehow kept apart from it; in her world there was family love and even compassion for orphans of flirty flibbertigibbets.

  I myself had once been fostered into that kind of environment. It could be harsh. There was no luxury. But it nurtured life, and where there was life there could eventually be chances.

  Maybe, I thought, what happened at the Garden of the Hesperides had nothing to do with drink, prostitution, extortion or slave-trading. Those things only provided a background. It was about domestic emotions, not trade.

  Mind you, if so, it had been carried out and concealed rather professionally.

  *

  I was on the verge of leaving. I could no longer bear the strain of this fond grandmother’s unhappiness for her Gavius. I wanted to trust her, but I probably should not have told her the truth; the point was for the villain or villains to see everyone reacting as if Gavius was genuinely gone. Still, Prisca’s tears were perfect. Besides, Gavius might yet die on us.

  Just as I took my leave, his grandmother burst out with something: “You mentioned Rufia.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think she would have helped that other one. She hated her.”

  I paused. “What happened? Jealous of Thales bunking up with Rhodina? Younger, prettier, bustier and more successful with the men?”

  “I don’t know about jealous. But Rufia had always reckoned Rhodina meant trouble. She tried hard to persuade Old Thales to get rid of her. Stupid, really. You know men; that only helped make him notice her.”

  “I know. If you want a man to do something, Gran, just tell him not to.”

  “I never went to the Hesperides,” said Prisca. “We didn’t have much money so I used to put meals together for them all at home. When we had an outing we used to go to the big thermopolium on the Clivus Salutis where they do a lot of fish and they welcome family parties. So I can’t tell you all of it. But you hear things. There was a struggle going on there over something, that’s a certainty. And Rufia was always going to come out on top.”

  So you had to wonder. Could the barmaid everyone always thought had been murdered, in fact be behind the other killings?

  XLVIII

  When I went outside, Tiberius’ water jug was empty. He gave me a questioning look, as if I had been a long while, though he had waited patiently.

  Coinciding with my emergence, people turned up at the Brown Toad and made for the interior I had just left. Foremost was Menendra, followed as always by her two men. Macer must have let them go. I suppose they had not actually done anything (anything he knew about). Trypho had not identified them and Macer did not want the burden of documenting an arrest.

  Today the heavies had satchels slung over them; Menendra was carrying a note tablet and stylus. They looked curiously like a bunch of auditors descending for an inspection.

  “Hold it, Menendra! The old cook indoors just heard that her grandson has been killed. She’s extremely upset. Give her some recovery time.” Watching closely, I detected some flicker in the woman’s harsh features. “Gavius,” I said softly, letting Menendra know I was checking her reaction. “He lives in the same alley as the people you tried burgling. Maybe you know something about it?”

  “Why should I?” As usual she went into angry mode. “Shift out of my way, Albia.”

  Staying put, I gestured to the writing equipment. “Doing a fruit-bowl survey?”

  She stared. She must have forgotten I had been told by the Dardanian girls that she supplied orchard produce. We all knew that was an invention. Convinced that whatever Menendra did now had once been Rufia’s scheme for self-enrichment, I held out my hand imperiously, asking to see her tablet.

  Tiberius stood up from his bench and seconded me. “Show us your notes, please.”

  Everything turned nasty. I tried to take the tablet. Menendra refused to let me. I grabbed hold. We tussled for possession, tugging at the wooden boards. I was biting my lip; she was cursing me.

  At the same time, her two men fell on Tiberius. They seized his arms, toppled him over backward onto the outdoor table and started slamming his head against the boards. They looked about to crack his skull open.

  “Leave him!” I yelled. I let go. Menendra staggered. Tiberius, who was sturdy enough, was fighting back, though he was at a two-to-one disadvantage and already down. Dammit, I was not prepared to lose my bridegroom before we even sacrificed the sheep. “This man is an aedile and sacred to Ceres. Touching him offends the great goddess. Stop, or you will be hanged for it.”

  This was true. Aediles had no bodyguards because they were sacrosanct. Also true was that Faustus stood little chance. His attackers had no mor
e to lose. “What can you do?” jeered Menendra.

  “Have you all arrested.” My mood had changed. My voice was dangerously quiet. She heard it and signaled to her men, who grudgingly released their victim. Then I shouted to Macer, whom I had just seen approaching down the street with a group of vigiles, probably coming to see us.

  *

  “Good timing!” gasped Tiberius, hauling himself upright while the troops grabbed his assailants.

  I rounded on Menendra. “You think you control this area—but see, the rule of law still holds!”

  Tiberius held up a hand to indicate I should be calm. Without being told, Macer and his men were searching the three in custody. They emptied out the heavies’ bags, adding Menendra’s note tablet to a pile of others that scattered on the table. They found purses containing a small amount of money, then stripped each man of lethal-looking knives.

  Macer was cheerful. “Oh joy. I can have them for going tooled up.” Arms were illegal. Even the Praetorian Guards wore togas and pretended to be harmless civilians. The ruthless bastards took a sinister relish in this joke.

  Tiberius looked closely at the knives. “I can’t see any blood, but this one—” He balanced a stiletto on one hand. “This could be what was used to stab Gavius the marble-supplier. It was a narrow blade.” He explained to Macer how Gavius had been attacked, letting it sound fatal.

  Macer knew that his cohort had been asked to keep an eye on Mucky Mule Mews after the parents had their attempted burglary. He could have felt he had let that family down—but as a vigiles officer he had no truck with guilt. There were so many worse failures to burden his busy conscience.

  He announced, rather pompously, that since the men had been involved in a killing he would haul them to the station house again, Menendra too. They protested—a formality. He laughed and told them on his watch you were guilty until proved innocent. In fact, traditionally, you were guilty until “proved” guilty. “Especially if I don’t like the look of you.”

  Since I was there, Menendra was searched too, by me. I discovered nothing but Macer said, “I’ll find a cell for you too. You look like a whore who is bound to have done something.” Roman justice. It dated back to Romulus. Those Sabine women were delighted to be abducted. What were they complaining about; they got husbands, didn’t they?

  In her good clothes and in middle age, Menendra did not look much like a prostitute, though she was hard enough to have been one once. While she argued, I examined the various note tablets turned out on the table. I thought if she really had taken over Rufia’s full range of activities, they would contain sordid details of women who slept with customers in bars, maybe even client names and brothel accounts. Arrangements with slave-importers and foreign traffickers. Notes of which pathetic mites worked where, what income came in from fornication, hours, percentages, price lists.

  Not exactly. Big surprise. There were prices all right. I found rates for the following: barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, peas, chickpeas, split peas, beans in endless varieties, linseed, sesame, even gourds. Nuts, seasonal, apply for prices … One set of notes contained a list of eating houses. It had monetary figures, sometimes with pay-day ticks.

  Astonished, I stared at Menendra. She glared back defiantly. I said, “Either ‘Mustard Seed’ and ‘Broad Bean’ are your secret codes for sex workers, or these figures reveal your trade is far more mundane—you deal in pulses?”

  She enjoyed my shock. “That got you! I am the dry-goods queen. Think about it.” Now she looked like a miser counting his gold, salivating over every coin, calling the big aurei his darlings. She positively revelled in her commercial power. Part of her joy was that nobody, including me (especially me), had realized a financial empire could be created in this specialized field. “How many food shops and bars exist in Rome?”

  “Oh I get it. You have identified a real niche market. High commerce is all about three things: wine, olive oil and wheat. But up goes an imperial edict saying ‘Serve no meat’—then suddenly the food of the common people becomes a vital commodity too.”

  “There wasn’t enough; Rufia saw that. She started a little lupin round. There still isn’t enough of the right stuff—or not conveniently available, not in good quantities, not in enough variety. We make arrangements so the bar owners don’t have to. They love us for it.” Her glare was as unpleasant as she could make it. “This is not illegal. I am helping keep people’s bellies full, with foods that the Emperor wants them to guzzle. You cannot touch me.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed, not disputing her claim. “Every time some hungry worker orders a pottage of green lentils on his way to his employment, you are acting as Rome’s savior. I shall suggest you be awarded a medal—though that may have to wait, Menendra, until we know whether you had a hand in stabbing Gavius.”

  Menendra and the men were dragged away by the vigiles. Macer stayed behind with us. He and Tiberius gazed at me with a mix of amazement and satire.

  “So that’s it.” Tiberius was gentle in his mockery. “First you have a garden full of bones, but the only corpse you can identify is the landlord’s dog.” Listening, Macer snorted. Tiberius lovingly murmured: “And now, my sweet, you are investigating lentils!”

  XLIX

  I was probably not looking at a grocery war; the idea seemed ridiculous. However, I smiled quietly and said sometimes the smallest thing can rouse a storm of passion. Macer, a literalist, flapped the neck of his tunic and answered that he wished the weather would break and give us a real storm to clear the air. Though wiry, he was feeling the heat. We were all sweating lightly.

  The fragile creature with the face paint was edging closer to the Brown Toad, trying to reoccupy his-her propositioning seat. For a private chat we moved along to the Four Limpets, which looked quiet. That too had tables illegally blocking the pavement, where we sat. It didn’t matter about us not wanting to order anything, because all the time we sat there, no staff came out to ask. A board claimed the legitimate dish of the day was porridge; I had started to make a point of checking what grains were offered. With the presence of an aedile in the area, prominent signs offering utterly blameless menus had popped up all over the place. It should do wonders for Menendra’s business plan.

  The Limpets’ L-shaped counter was in three shades of gray. I was now noticing that too. The sign depicted only three conical seashells, not four, though their noduled rays were finely drawn. I saw a basket for a cat or dog, though it must have gone out for a walk. Their price list showed not only wines but how much it cost per session for Orchivia or Artemisia. Virginity was extra. Some joker had added that in different chalk.

  Macer was here in reply to our message about needing an overview of extortion in the Ten Traders. It had only taken him a day to respond. He seemed to think we should thank him for making it so urgent. He pointed out that he did have other work; for instance it was the tribune’s birthday yesterday, which required a whole day’s celebrating. Their governor was a sad case who had no family. Anyone could see why. Nevertheless the lads did their best to compensate him for being so unlikeable. At least, they did when he was buying. “Was it you who sent me a bright-burning lamp called Juventus? Burbling on about ‘liaising’ on a ‘special project?’ Completely bonkers. What a sad-arsed clown.”

  “Must have come of his own accord,” Tiberius assured him gravely. “We would never do that to you.” So Macer knew it was our fault. He seemed to bear no grudge.

  Thinking about Juventus made Macer thirsty. He went into the bar, where he whistled for a waiter, gaining no response. This place was dead. Undeterred, he chose a beaker, selected a wine jar from a shelf, sniffed it, poured a large drink for himself, wiped a drip off the jar with his finger and licked it, then clinked a copper or two in a saucer. When he came back to us he sat for a moment taking his drink. We waited politely.

  His gangster overview was short. The Ten Traders territory was currently claimed by old Rabirius, overseen through his hard man Gallo. The young nephew
Roscius had his eye on the neighborhood too, but so far had made no move. Macer agreed that Gallo would try to lean on Liberalis even though his bar was closed for renovation; however, he thought it unlikely the gang would have destroyed our site. It was in their interests to keep places decent in order to earn more money. The Rabirii liked improvements to be made. And whatever Liberalis had told us about not paying, he probably had done so, or soon would.

  Regarding the attack on Gavius, Macer doubted it had been carried out by the Rabirius gang. It had all the wrong signatures. The key points were: one, that the hideous Gallo would have killed the dogs as well, no question, plus two, when intent on silencing someone, he would never leave his victim alive. If we needed even more convincing, Gallo’s method was to batter people. He wanted the results to look spectacularly painful, to instil terror into others. Anyway, he enjoyed doing it.

  We were gloomily silent for a while.

  I asked whether Macer knew anything about the pulse-suppliers. He said no, though it sounded very interesting. He might look into it.

  I could tell what that meant.

  Ha!

  L

  “Never mind,” teased Tiberius. “You have plenty to do trying to identify the deceased chicken.”

  He had kindly waited until Macer had left before he started ragging. Even so, I felt my hackles rise. If there had been any way to trace the late and unlamented fowl and its one-time owner, or if there was any point in doing so, I would have set about it, just to show him.

  *

  Despite knowing better, I started thinking about that chicken bone.

  Next thing, I had asked Tiberius the name of the undertakers who had taken away our skeletons—and off I went by myself to have another look. Some informers would not have bothered. I like to be thorough (when I can think of nothing else to do). But do not mock. I was about to prove that diligence pays off.