Venus in copper mdf-3

by Lindsey Davis

  'No.' The lapidary gave me a level stare. He was daring me to put it even more plainly-though giving notice that he would cut up rough if I did. 'Why should I?' he continued in his squeaky voice, apparently unperturbed by my badgering. 'She charges a fair rent; she has a decent business sense. Moscus is dead. It's up to the girl what she does with her life.'

  If I wanted scandal, I stood no chance here. I grinned foolishly, and ambled off.

  Back to watching the gold-digger's house in Abacus Street. The diary took its usual course. Breakfast. Hot weather. Wine delivery. Dog chasing a cat. Gold-digger to bathhouse…

  This was reaching the point where I could describe Severina's day before she yawned and decided her plans. It was easy work, though so unproductive it made me depressed. Then, just when I was wondering how to initiate some action I acquired several new pieces of information in rapid succession.

  The chair emerged just after lunch. I followed for five streets and watched it carried down an entry through a pottery shop. I stayed in the outer street. After over an hour, doubt set in. I walked through the shop, expecting to see Severina's chair waiting at the far end of the dark passageway.

  The chair had vanished. While I was outside like a fool, being buffeted by piemen's trays and having mules stamp on my feet, the gold-digger had been carried indoors-then probably out afterwards through the garden gate. Clever work, Falco!

  I walked up to the house. The ground-floor apartment was pretty unobtrusive. No windows; no potted creepers; no kittens on the step; just a dark painted door with a secretive grille. Beside it a small ceramic tile had been fixed to the wall. The plaque was midnight blue, with black lettering and a decorative border of tiny gold stars. It bore a single name in Greek script:

  ************

  * TUXH*

  ************

  I knew what sort of place this was. I knew just what sort of mad, withered hag this Tyche must be. I braced myself. Then I raised my fist, and banged firmly on the door.

  'Any chance of an appointment?'

  'Do you want to see her now?'

  'If there's nobody else with her -'

  'It should be all right. Her last visitor left some time ago…'

  I swallowed. Then in I went, for an immediate appointment with a female astrologer.

  Chapter XIV

  I dread these places.

  I prepared myself for a filthy Babylonian, muttering gibberish. To my relief, the smoky caboose for predictions must be elsewhere in the house; the neat slaveboy led me instead to a disturbingly handsome reception room. It had a gleaming black and white mosaic floor. The walls were painted black above a simply patterned dado; their panels were divided by stylised candelabra and featured tiny gold medallions-scallop shells and flower sprays. There were two long-backed chairs such as women use, either side of a low white marble table that must have weighed half a ton. Positioned on the table (rather obviously, I thought) were an astrolabe at one end and at the other an open scroll of planetary records. Opposite the door stood a set of shelves holding a score of very old Greek vases which an auctioneer I knew would have drooled over-all perfect, all a substantial size, all in the ancient geometric style whose repetitive rows of whorls, circles and stylised antelopes must be the specialised choice of a collector with cool taste.

  The antiques impressed me more than the atmosphere. Apart from a lingering scent of women's perfume, as though the room had been recently vacated, there were no wafts of incense or drugs to lull the unwary visitor. No tinkling bells. No subtle intoxicating music. No deformed dwarves leaping out of hidden cabinets…

  'Welcome. How can I help you?' The woman who had slipped in through the door curtain was perfectly clean, calm, and possessed a pleasant, cultured voice. She spoke her Latin with a better accent than me.

  She looked about sixty. Her straight dark gown hung from two small silver niello shoulder-brooches, so her arms were bare, though hidden in spare folds of the material. Her hair was rather thin, mostly black yet with broad silver streaks. Her face lacked professional mystique, except for severely hooded eyes. The eyes were no special colour. It was the face of any businesswoman in the male world of Rome: accommodating, yet with an underlying stubborn strength and a trace, faint as snail tracks, of personal bitterness.

  'You the astrologer?'

  Her mouth was tight, as if she disapproved of me. 'I am Tyche.'

  'Greek for Fortune-very nice!'

  'That sounds insulting.'

  'I have several less nice names for people who pointlessly raise the hopes of those in despair.'

  'Then I must remember,' Tyche commented, 'not to raise yours!'

  I was expecting to find myself the subject of some shrewd scrutiny. So I stared back openly. 'I can see you are not a customer,' she commented, though I had said nothing. Of course pretending to read minds would be part of her trade apparatus.

  'The name's Falco -'

  'I have no need to know your name.'

  'Spare me the patter. Enigmatic piffle makes me grind my teeth.'

  'Oh I see!' Her face relaxed into ruefulness. 'The regime here disappoints you. You wanted to be frightened to death. You expected a cackling harridan casting dried entrails backwards into a bright green fire?-I stopped doing spells. The smoke ruins the decor… You had better tell me when you were born.'

  'Why?'

  'Everyone who comes on other business expects a free prophecy.'

  'I don't! March, if you must know.'

  'Pisces or Aries?'

  'Never quite sure. "On the cusp".'

  'You would be!'

  'I was right; you do disapprove of me,' I growled.

  'Don't most people? Your eyes have witnessed too much you may not speak of among friends.'

  'My feet have tramped too many uneven pavements on the trail of too many grasping girls who are conniving at death! Her name is Severina, by the way.'

  'I know that,' said Tyche quietly.

  'Oh?'

  'Severina was a customer,' the astrologer explained, with mild reproof. 'I needed her name and address to send my bill.'

  That did surprise me. 'What happened to crossing the palm with a silver denarius? I thought you people only did business on a strict cash basis?'

  'Certainly not! I never handle money. I have three perfectly adequate accountants who look after my financial affairs.' This must be one fortune-teller who had moved up a long way from telling half-truths to shepherds' girlfriends in hot little canvas booths. Tyche serviced the gilded-litter trade; I bet she charged for it too. 'What do you want, Falco?'

  'A seer ought to know! What did Severina Zotica want?' The woman gave me a long stare that was meant to start a shiver between my shoulder blades. It did. But my work was as much based on bluff as her own. 'Was she buying horoscopes?' She assented in silence. 'I need to know what you told her?'

  'Professional secret!'

  'Naturally I'll pay the going rate for it-'

  'The information is not for sale.'

  'Everything is for sale! Tell me whose future she was putting a marker on.'

  'I can't possibly do that.'

  'All right; let me tell you! Her story goes, she is about to be married and wants to reassure herself about her prospects afterwards. One horoscope was her own; that was to make it look good. And the other subject was -'

  'Her future husband.'

  Tyche smiled wryly, as if she realised the news was bound to be misinterpreted: some people believe that to possess another person's horoscope gives you power over their soul.

  Chapter XV

  The first positive signal about Severina's motives: I felt my toes curling inside my boots, while my heels tried to press themselves through the unyielding tessellations of the mosaic floor. The coarse fibres of my worn woollen tunic prickled against my collarbones. Into this oddly civilised room with its austere occupant, horror had stalked.

  Before I could comment, the astrologer took the initiative. 'I presume you are not a supe
rstitious man?'

  'The point,' I exclaimed, 'is whether Severina believes this gives her a hold over her fiance!' Rome accepts anyone who takes a keen interest in their own destiny-but to peek at someone else's must be a sign of bad intentions. Indeed, in political life, to acquire an opponent's horoscope is a deeply hostile act. 'Future husband or not, Severina has broken a serious taboo of privacy. Tyche, you could be heading for indictment as an accessory to an unnatural death: if the freedman dies I'd be prepared to cite you for encouraging his murderer-unless you co-operate. What did you tell her?'

  'I told her the truth, Falco.'

  'Stop fencing! If Novus is supposed to die in the next few weeks, better warn me now -'

  'If the man is supposed to die, then he will!'

  'Next you'll tell me that we all die -'

  'My gifts are passive; I can interpret fate. It is not my role to change it.'

  'Ha! Don't you ever try?'

  'Do you?' she chipped back.

  'I was brought up by a good mother; compassion has a habit of intruding into my working life -'

  'You must get very despondent!'

  'I should be even more despondent if people with evil intentions were allowed to proceed unchecked -'

  'Any force has its opposite,' Tyche assured me. 'Malign influences must be balanced by kindly ones.' Still standing quite motionless, she suddenly gave me a smile of such intensity it was impossible to meet head-on. 'Perhaps you are an agent of the stars?'

  'Forget it!' I growled, fighting back a grin. 'No ethereal committee of management owns me; I am an independent spirit.'

  'Not quite, I think!' For a moment she seemed to hesitate over whether to laugh. She let the desire pass and stood aside from the doorway.

  I prognosticated (privately) that a handsome dark-haired man with intelligent eyes was about to make a brisk exit from her house. 'Tyche, if you refuse to tell me whether Novus is secure, at least say this: will Severina Zotica be executed for her crimes?'

  'Oh no. She may never be happy, but she will live long and die in her bed.'

  'You told her that?'

  The wry look returned to the fortune-teller's face. 'We spoke only of her hopes for happiness.'

  'Ah well, I imagine very few people ask you, am I likely to be fed to the lions as a common criminal?

  'True!'

  'And what did you tell her about her marriage?'

  'You will not believe it.'

  'Try me.'

  'Severina's next husband will outlive her in old age.'

  I said that was good news for the husband!

  Time to leave. I saluted the seer thoughtfully, with the respect I give anyone who can keep three accountants busy. They never let you get away that easily: 'Would you like a prediction, Falco?'

  'Can I prevent it?'

  'Someone who loves you may have a higher destiny.'

  'Anyone who loves me could do better in life!' As we mentioned Helena I could not prevent the fortune-teller seeing the change in my face. 'The someone in question would not be in love with me now, if she had the sense to opt for a less cranky fate.'

  'Your heart knows whether that is true.'

  There was no damned reason why I should justify Helena to a postulating, nit-picking, Babylonian mountebank. 'My heart is at her feet,' I snapped. 'I shall not blame her if she gives it a nudge with her toe then kicks it around the floor a bit! But don't underestimate her loyalty! You have seen me, and made a few accurate deductions, but you cannot judge my lady -'

  'I can judge anyone,' the woman answered flatly, 'by seeing the person they love.'

  Which, like all astrological pronouncements, could mean anything you wanted-or nothing at all.

  Chapter XVI

  I retraced my steps to Abacus Street. Almost immediately Severina's chair appeared from the house. I had not even reached my usual place at the cookshop table, but was pausing at the opposite end of the street to buy an apple from an old man who kept a fruit stall there. He was telling me about his orchard, which was out on the Campagna and only a few miles from the market garden my mother's family ran. We were so deep in conversation about Campagna landmarks and characters that I could not easily disengage myself to pursue the sedan.

  Then, while I was still trying to deflect the old chap's offers of complimentary fruit, who should slyly put her head out of the passage beside the cheese shop, but a heavily veiled woman who looked just Severina's shape and size? The maid at her elbow was definitely the gold-digger's…

  My surveillance had been fairly casual. This gave every suggestion that my presence had been noted; that giving me the slip at Tyche's had been deliberate; and that sending out the chair was a decoy.

  Both women were now looking towards the cookshop. I waited by the fruit stall until they seemed satisfied by my empty bench. Eventually they set off on foot, this time with me adopting my strictest procedures for tailing a suspect invisibly.

  If the visit to the fortune-teller had been indicative, that was nothing to what happened next: Severina Zotica took herself to a marble yard.

  She was ordering a tombstone.

  I could guess who it was for.

  After selecting her square of marble, I watched her depart. As soon as I felt sure she was heading homewards, I nipped back to see the stonemason myself. His name was Scaurus. I found him deep in a narrow corridor amongst his stock. On one hand were room-high stacks of rough-cut travertine for general building purposes; on the other, pallets protecting smaller slabs of finer marble which would be made into self-congratulatory epitaphs for second-rate officials, monuments for old soldiers, and poignant plaques to commemorate sweet lost children.

  Scaurus was a short, strong, dust-covered character with a bald dome, a broad face, and small ears which stuck out like wheelbosses each side of his head. Naturally his dealings with clients were confidential. And naturally the size of bribe my clients could afford soon got us over that.

  'I'm interested in Severina Zotica. She must be the kind of regular client you love-so much domestic tragedy!'

  'I've done one or two jobs for her,' Scaurus admitted, not quarrelling with my jocular approach.

  'Three husbands down-and the next looming! Am I right that she's just ordered a new memorial stone?' He nodded. 'Can I see the text of the inscription?'

  'Severina only came in for an estimate, and to put down a deposit on the slab.'

  'She give you the deceased's name?'

  'No.'

  'So what was the story?'

  'Other people are involved-a subscription effort. She has to consult them about the words to use.'

  'I bet! The fact is, this poor fellow's relations may have the good manners to want him dead first, before they commit themselves!' I was starting to feel angry. 'Does she normally have the tombstone cut in advance?'

  Scaurus was becoming more cautious. A thriving trade was one thing, but he did not want to be identified as an accessory before the fact. I warned him I would be back for a sight of the finished carving, then I left it at that.

  He had given me what I needed. The horoscope and the memorial stone spoke for themselves. If nobody weighed in to stop Severina, Hortensius Novus was a dead man.

  Chapter XVII

  Some informers with a telling piece of information rush straight off to report. I like to mull things over. Since I met Helena Justina most of my best mulling had been done in company; she had a sharp brain, with the advantage of a dispassionate view of my work. Her approval always reassured me-and sometimes she contributed a thought that I could hone up into a clever ploy for solving the case. (Sometimes Helena told me I was a patronising ferret, which just proves my point about her perceptiveness.)

  I arrived at the Senator's door at about nine, just before dinner. The porter on duty was an old antagonist. He eagerly told me Helena was out.

  I asked where she had gone. The bathhouse. Which? He didn't know. I didn't believe him anyway. A senator's daughter rarely leaves home without mentioning
where she is going. It need not be true. Just some tale to delude her noble father that his petal is respectable, and give her mother (who knows better) something new to worry about.

  I shared a few choice witticisms with Janus, though frankly his intellect had never been up to my standard. I was turning away when their lost pigeon decided to wing in home.

  'Where were you?' I demanded, more hotly than I meant.

  She looked startled. 'Bathing…'

  She was clean all right. She looked delicious. Her hair shone; her skin was soft, and perfumed all over with some distinctive flowery oil that made me want to move very much closer to investigate… I was working up a froth again. I knew she could tell, and I knew she would laugh, so I retreated into banter. 'I just encountered a fortune-teller who promised I was doomed in love. So naturally I dashed straight here -'

  'For a dose of doom?'

  'Works wonders on the bowels. You're due for "a higher destiny", by the way.'

  'That sounds like hard work! Is it like a legacy? Can I pass it on hastily to somebody else?'

  'No, madam, your stars are fixed-though luckily the prophetess has decided I am the constellations' agent. For a small backhander I can undertake to unfix fortune and unravel destiny…'

  'Remind me never to let you near when I'm spinning wool… Are you coming in to make me laugh, or is this just a tantalising glimpse to make me pine for you?'

  Since the porter had opened the door for her, I was already inside.

  'Do you?' I asked nonchalantly.

  'What?'

  'Pine for me?'

  Helena Justina gave me an unfathomable smile.

  She whisked me further indoors and seated me under a pergola in a secluded colonnade. Helena slid onto a seat next to me and fastened a rose in my shoulder-brooch while she kept the houseslaves running about bringing me wine, warming it, fetching dishes of almonds, then cushions, then a new cup because mine had a minute chip in the glaze… I lay back in her own reclining chair and enjoyed the attention (gnawing my thumb). She seemed extraordinarily loving. Something was up. I decided some burnished bugger with a senatorial pedigree must have asked her home to see his collection of blackfigure jars.