Venus In Copper

by Lindsey Davis

  'A reconciliation; I've already told you. It was Priscillus I tried to warn you about before.'

  'He was threatening Novus?'

  'Novus, and the other two as well. That was why Atilia hardly lets her son out of her sight--one of the threats was to abduct him.' I knew Atilia took the child to school herself, which was highly unusual.

  'So which of these multiple suspects are you fingering?' I asked sarcastically.

  'That's the problem--I just don't know. Falco, what would you say if I asked to hire you myself?'

  I'd call for help, probably. 'Frankly the last thing I want is a commission from a professional bride--especially when she's midway between husbands, and tends to react unpredictably--'

  'You mean what nearly happened last night?' Severina coloured.

  'We can both forget last night.' My voice sounded lower than I had intended. I noticed that she started slightly, so her shawl slipped back, revealing her flame-coloured hair. 'We were drunk.' Severina gave me a straighter look that I liked.

  'Will you work for me?' she insisted.

  'I'll think about it.'

  'That means no.'

  'It means I'll think about it!'

  At that moment I was ready to throw the gold-digger downstairs. (In fact I was in two minds whether to give up my career altogether, hire a booth and take up chair mending ...)

  There was a knock; Severina must have left my outer door ajar, and before I could answer it was pushed open. A man staggered in, gasping. His predicament was clear.

  He had just struggled up two flights of stairs--to deliver the biggest fish I ever saw.

  Chapter XLI

  I stood up. Very slowly.

  'Where do you want him, legate?' He was a small man. As he lurched in from the corridor he was holding my present up by its mouth because he could not get his arms round it: the fish looked almost as long as its deliverer was tall. It was wider than he was.

  'Slap him down here ...'

  The man groaned, leaned back, then launched the fish sideways so it landed across the small table I used to lean my elbows on sometimes. Then, being a game trier, he jumped up and down, each time hauling my slippery present further on. Severina bobbed upright, daunted by a tailfin the size of an ostrich feather fan, which stuck over the edge of the table a foot from her nose.

  There was no smell. He was in beautiful condition.

  The delivery man seemed to take sufficient pleasure from the drama his arrival had caused--but I decided for once to squeeze out the half-aureus I kept in my tunic for really serious gratuities.

  'Thanks, legate! Enjoy your party...' He left, with a much lighter step than when he came.

  'Party?' hinted Severina, looking coy. 'Are you going to invite me?'

  I felt so weak I might have let her persuade me. it would have created a Mount Olympus of complications for myself.

  Then the door swung open a second time, to admit someone who never reckoned to knock if there was half a chance of interrupting something scandalous, 'Hello Mother!' I cried valiantly.

  Ma raked Severina Zotica with the look she reserved for unpleasant squashy things found at the back of dark kitchen shelves. Then she glanced at my extravagant present. 'That fishmonger of yours needs a talking-to! When did you start buying by the yard?'

  'Must be a mix-up: all I ordered was a cuttlefish.'

  'That's you all over. Palace ideas on pigsty money...

  You'll want a big plate!'

  I sighed. 'I can't keep this, Ma. I'd better send him as a gift to Camillus Verus; do myself some good that way--'

  'It's one way to show your respect for the Senator ...

  Pity. I could have made a good stock from the bones.' My mother was still blocking Severina out of the conversation,but letting her know that I had influential friends. Redheads always upset my mother. And she generally disapproved of my female clients.

  Ma made herself scarce so I could rid us of this inconvenience. 'Severina, I'll have to think about your offer.'

  'Will you have to ask your mother?' she sniped.

  'No; I have to consult my barber, look up the "black days" on my calendar, sacrifice a beautiful virgin, and peruse the internal organs of a sheep with twisted horns ... I know where I can get the sheep, but virgins are harder to come by and my barber's out of town. Give me twenty-four hours.' She wanted to argue, but I gestured at the turbot so she could see that I was serious about having things to organise.

  My mother promptly reappeared, stepping out of Severina's way with insulting delicacy. Severina retaliated by giving me a much sweeter smile than usual before she closed the door behind her.

  'Watch that one!' muttered Ma.

  Via and I gazed sadly at the giant fish.

  I'm bound to regret giving him away.'

  'You'll never get another!'

  'I'm itching to keep him--but how could I cook him?'

  'Oh I dare say we can improvise ...'

  'Camillus Verus is never going to approve of me, anyway --'

  'No,' agreed Ma, obliquely. 'You could invite him to eat me of it.'

  'Not here!'.

  'Invite Helena then.'

  'Helena won't come.'

  'She never will if nobody asks her? Have you upset her?'

  'Why do you assume it's my fault? We had a few words.'

  'You never change!... So that's settled,' decided my mother, 'Just a family party. Mind you,' she added, in case this news had somehow cheered me up,'I always reckon turbot is a tasteless fish.'

  Chapter XLII

  Sometimes I feared my mother must have led a double life. I resisted the thought, because that is not what a decent Roman boy wants to suspect about the woman who gave him birth,

  'Where on earth have you eaten turbot?'

  'Your Uncle Fabius caught one once.' That made sense. No one in our family had the nous to present a turbot to the Emperor; anything my relations got their hands on went straight in the pot. 'It was a baby. Nowhere near as big as

  'If Fabius caught it, that was predictable!' Everything about Uncle Fabius was small: a family joke.

  'You don't want him bitter. I'll take out the gills for you, volunteered mother.

  I let her She liked to delude herself I still needed looking after. Besides, I enjoyed the thought of my tiny, elderly mother laying into something quite that big.

  Ideally I would bake him in an oven. That called for a clay pot (no time to have one made), then entrusting him to the dopey rakemen at some public bakery. I could have built my own oven, but apart from having to lug the bricks home I was frightened of the fire risk and strongly suspected that any structure big enough to contain this turbot might cause my floor to cave in. .

  'I decided to poach him. Flatfish only need gentle simmering I would have to find a huge pan, but for that I had had an idea In the roof space at my mother's house, where members of the family stored unattractive New Year gifts, was a huge oval shield which my late brother Festus brought home. It was made of some bronzed alloy, and Festus maintained it was a pricey Peloponnesian antique. I upset him by swearing it had to be Celtic--which meant it was just another cheap souvenir my daft brother had won in a bet or picked up on the quay at Ostia. Festus would have been even more annoyed at me turning his dusty prize into a monstrous fishkettle.

  I nipped off to mother's. When I clambered up to get the shield I found a nest of mice in one end, but I tipped them out and said nothing. The handle inside had already lost one securing bolt when Festus was larking about; the other was rusted fast with verdigris but I managed to shear it off (cutting open a few knuckles). The pointed boss on the front might cause problems. I reckoned I could suspend the shield on two or three steaming pans of water over braziers and just keep the fish going if I heated his liquor first. I spent an hour burnishing the metal, washed it at a public fountain, then carried it home. It was indeed big enough for the turbot--but too shallow. I put him in, filled up with water, and found it reached the rim of the shield before
it fully covered the fish. The scalding stock would swoosh about. And turning the turbot over half-way through cooking time might be difficult.. .

  As usual my mother let me devise my own solution, then sat at home brooding how my brilliant plan would fail. While I was still staring at the half covered fish in the shield she rattled into my apartment, almost invisible under a huge copper washtub from Lenia's laundry yard. We tried not to think what might have been trampled clean in it. 'I gave it a good scrub ...' The tub was shorter than the Celtic shield, but the turbot could be crammed in diagonally if I turned up his great triangular head and his tail. Ma had also brought some cabbage nets to lift him out after he turned gelatinous.

  Now I was ready.

  I invited my mother, my best friend Petronius and Petro's wife Silvia, with a couple of my relatives. At least my family was so large that nobody could expect me to entertain the entire tribe at once. I chose Maia, to thank her for the betting-token feat, and Junia, to repay her for the bed. I did not invite my brothers-in-law, but they came anyway.

  I told the guests they could arrive early, since watching the fish cooked would be part of the fun. None of them needed encouragement. They all turned up before I had time to look out a clean tunic or go for a bathe. I let them wander about criticising my new quarters and rearranging my personal property, while I worried over the fish.

  I was planning for us to eat in the room I had earmarked as my office, but they all brought their stools and crowded into the living room, where they could get in my way and clammer advice.

  'What stock are you using, Marcus?'

  'Just water with wine and bay leaves; I don't want to destroy the natural flavour; it's supposed to be delicate --'

  'You ought to add a dash of fish pickle--Maia, shouldn't he add fish pickle?'

  'I reckon he ought to cook it in the sauce --'

  'No; the sauce will be handled separately --'

  'You're going to regret that, Marcus! Is it Saffron or Onion?'

  'Caraway.'

  'Caraway? Ooh! Marcus is making Caraway Sauce --'

  In the midst of this babble, I was pestling the herbs for my sauce (should have been lovage but Maia had thought I asked her to bring parsley; should have included thyme but I had left my pot at Fountain Court). Someone knocked; Petronius answered the door for me. 'Camillus Verus has sent you a reading couch--where do you want it?' Petro bawled. I wanted the couch in my office, but that was where I had laid out everything for our meal (everything that had not yet been removed again by my visitors). 'Shall we stick it in your bedroom?'

  'Not enough space; try the empty one opposite --' One of my braziers flared up dangerously, so I had to leave him to it.

  My mother and Junia had chosen this moment to hang up door curtains for me, so I could not see out into the corridor for their arms waving amongst folds of striped material. Both my brothers-in-law had involved themselves in banging up nails to carry the lintel string; the simple task of putting up a straight line had developed into a major surveying project. Whatever was happening in the rest of the house I could hear distressing indications of damage to both my doorframes and Petronius' good temper, but theliquor for my fish was beginning to sizzle on the sides of the washtub so I had to ignore the raised voices outside. I was red-faced from stabilising a brazier beneath the weight of the hot washcopper; I had just heaved up the turbot into my arms to introduce him to the pan when I heard Maia shriek, 'Sorry; this is a private family party; Didius Falco is not on call to clients--'

  There was an uneasy lull. I turned round, fish and all, For one horrid moment I expected Severina, but it was far worse. Petronius, with desperate eyes, was shepherding someone in the doorway, someone who was a stranger to most of my family, but certainly not to me... Helena Justina.

  For a moment she failed to grasp the situation. 'Marcus! I thought you must have been developing other interests, but I never expected to find you with your arms locked round a fish--'

  Then the lull sank to a silence, And all the sparkle died in her eyes, as Helena absorbed the houseful of merrymaking visitors, the fabulous gift I was cooking--and the fact that I had not invited her.

  Chapter XLIII

  After five years in the Aventine watch Petronius had a keen eye for trouble. 'Someone take hold of the man's fish for him!'

  My sister Maia leapt to her feet and grappled with me for the turbot, but with the stubborness of someone in shock I refused to let it go. 'This is Helena,' Petronius announced to everybody helpfully. He had planted himself behind her to stop her backing out. She and I were both helpless. I did not want to talk to her in front of other people. With people watching, Helena would not speak to me.

  I gripped the fish like a drowning sailor clutching a spar. It was all my fault as usual, but it was Helena who looked horrified. She struggled against the avuncular arm which Petronius had slung round her. 'Marcus, Helena came to supervise the delivery of your reading couch--Helena,' Petronius battled on, 'Marcus has been presented with a wonderful treat from Titus--are you going to stay and dine with us?'

  'Not where I am not invited!'

  'You are always invited,' I spoke up at last unconvincingly.

  'It's considered convenient to tell people!'

  'Then I'm telling you now --'

  'That's gracious of you, Marcus!'

  With the strength of the tipsy, Maia dragged the turbot away from me. Before I could stop her she placed him on the edge of the copper, over which he slipped as gracefully as a state barge on its maiden trip. A tide of scented water surged over the opposite edge making all the braziers crackle; members of my family cheered.

  Maia sat down looking proud of her efforts. My brothers-in-law started passing round the wine I intended for later. The turbot was safe temporarily but he had started to cook, before I had time to count the spoons, thicken the sauce, change my tunic--or reconcile the girl I had insulted so appallingly. Petronius Longus was fussing over her, trying to apologise for me, but with a final effort Helena forced herself free. 'Marcus will see you out --' he got in hopefully.

  'Marcus has to cook his fish!'

  Helena disappeared.

  The water in the fish copper boiled.

  ''Leave it!' squealed Maia, fighting me over the braziers.

  My mother, who had been sitting in silence, pushed us both aside with a mutinous growl. 'We can look after it --go on!'

  I rushed out into the corridor: empty.

  I threw open the outer door: no one on the stairs.

  With my heart bumping angrily I ran back inside, and glanced in the other rooms. Alongside the Senator's reading couch in the cubicle I never used stood a trunk I had seen Helena travel with ... Oh Jupiter. I guessed what that meant.

  Petronius had cornered her in my bedroom. Helena was normally so resilient he seemed more upset than she was. I strode in, to his immense relief. 'Would you like us all to leave?' I shook my head vigorously (thinking of the fish), Petronius slunk away.

  I placed myself between Helena and the door. She stood shaking with anger, or possibly distress. 'Why didn't you invite me?'

  'I thought you wouldn't come!' Her face was white, and tense, and miserable. I hated myself for making her hate me. 'I was still waiting for you to contact me. You obviously didn't want to. Helena, I could not face staring at the door all evening, waiting for you--'

  'Well, I came anyway!' she retorted crisply. 'And now I suppose I'm expected to say "Oh that's just Marcus!" the way your family do!' I let her rant. It did her good, and gave me time. I could see that she had completely despaired. That trunk of hers had told me why. Not only had I slapped her in the face; I did it on the very day she had decided to come and live with me ... 'Don't try anything!' she warned me, as I started walking towards her. 'I cannot deal with this any longer, Marcus--'

  I put both hands on her shoulders; she braced herself against the weight. 'My darling, I do know --' I pulled her towards me. She resisted, but not hard enough.

  'Mar
cus, I cannot bear seeing you go away and never knowing if I shall ever see you come back --'

  I gathered her closer. 'I'm here --'

  'Let me go, Marcus.' Helena was leaning away from me; I must have stunk of uncooked fish.

  'No; let me make things right --'

  'I don't want you to!' she answered, in that same thin, despondent voice. 'Marcus, I don't want to be bamboozled by some clever piece of oratory. I don't want to co-operate in cheating myself. I don't want to hear you squirming, 'Helena Justina, I didn't invite you because I knew you were coming anyway; Helena, I'm letting you blame me because I deserve it--'

  'I am sorry. Don't tell me I'm a bastard; I'll say it myself--' Helena nodded rapidly. 'I won't insult you by saying I love you, but I do, and you know it --'

  'Oh stop pretending to be so strong and comforting!'

  Grateful for the hint, I wrapped myself around her. 'Forget I've been cuddling a turbot; come here ...'

  Her face crumpled as she leaned against my fishy chest.

  Maia poked her head in through the new door curtain, saw us and blushed. 'Shall we lay another bowl?'

  'Yes,' I said without consulting Helena. Maia disappeared.

  'No Marcus,' said Helena. 'I'll be friends; I cannot help it--but you will never make me stay.'

  She had no time to finish. Before she could demolish me utterly, someone else started banging at my door. Petro would go. I could imagine his dread in case he found another girlfriend smirking on the threshold ... I grimaced at Helena and started off to assist. Before I reached the doorway he burst in.

  'There's a panic on, Marcus; can you come?' My quiet friend looked highly excited. 'It's a posse of damned Praetorians'. Only Mars knows what they are after--but apparently you asked Titus to bring his dinner napkin, to sample your fish . ..'

  This had all the makings of a social disaster. I winked at Helena. 'Well! Are you just going to stand there looking beautiful--or are you going to rally round?'

  Chapter XLIV