Part 7 (1/2)
”Just a knack.”
”Actually, we know charming, self-confident, dear little patrician Gaia,” I said.
”Through your family?” Maia asked Helena.
”One of my clients,” I returned smoothly. Maia and Petro guffawed. ”She looks ideal for the Vestal's job. All her relatives specialize in holding priestly posts. She has grown up in the house of a Flamen Dialis.”
”Well, dear me, I heard all about that. The child is perfect for the role!” quipped Maia sourly. ”So I don't want to be rude, Marcus, but what does she need you for?”
”That, I admit, is a puzzle. Did she talk at all to Cloelia?”
”Afraid so. I may lack social climbing skills, but my strange ambitious baby goes straight to make friends with the people who matter.”
”Cloelia cannot be yours,” said Helena. ”Famia must have found her under an arch. Tell us about Gaia Laelia; did she look happy being favored by Berenice and the Vestal?”
Maia paused. ”Mostly. She was one of the youngest, and after a long time in the royal embrace I thought she probably got bored--anyway, there was a little flurry. It was handled very smoothly, and most people never noticed.”
”What kind of flurry?” I asked.
”How should I know? It seemed as if she said something embarra.s.sing, the way children do. Berenice looked startled. Gaia was whisked off the Queen's lap, her mother grabbed her, looking as if she wanted to be swallowed by a chasm opening up, and you could see everyone nearby laughing and pretending nothing had happened. Next time I saw Gaia, she was playing with my Cloelia, and they both gave me a glare that said n.o.body should interrupt.”
”Playing?” Helena demanded.
”Yes, they spent over an hour carrying imaginary water vessels from one of the fountains.”
”What did you think of Gaia?”
”Too good mannered. Too nice natured. Too pretty and well favored. Don't say it: I know I'm just a rude grouse.”
”We love you for it,” I a.s.sured my sister affectionately. I now explained how Gaia had come to see me, and what she had said about her family. ”I don't know what it's all about, but she was asking me for help. So what did you think of Gaia's mother? If someone in the family has it in for the child, could it be her?”
”Doubt it,” said Maia. ”She was far too proud of her little mite.”
”We only met an uncle,” Helena contributed. ”Is the mother downtrodden?”
”Not noticeably, at least not when she is out in female company.”
”But at home, who knows? . . . Did Cloelia tell Gaia she has an uncle who is an informer?”
”No idea. She could well have done.”
”And on the other side, I suppose you don't know if Gaia told Cloelia anything about her family?”
”Helena, when Julia is older you will learn about this: I,” said Maia, ”was merely the chaperon who enabled my daughter to mingle with elevated people and dream that she herself was ludicrously important. I hired the litter that took us to the Palatine. I caused embarra.s.sment by wearing too bright a gown and by making jokes about the occasion in a rather loud undertone. Other than that, I was superfluous. I was not allowed to know anything that Cloelia got up to when the girls were let loose together. My only other role was later at home, mopping her brow and holding the bowl when the excitement made her throw up all night.”
”You are a wonderful mother,” Helena a.s.sured her.
”Do mention it to my children sometime.”
”They know,” I said.
”Well, Cloelia won't think so when I have to break the news that she won't be chosen.”
”Mothers all over Rome will have the same problem,” Petro reminded her.
”All except the self-satisfied piece with the squint who produced Gaia Laelia.” The child's mother had really offended Maia. But I reckoned it was merely by existing.
”It may not be so simple. Something is definitely amiss there. The child came to ask for help for a reason.”
”She came to see you because she had a wild imagination and no sense of judgment,” said Maia. ”Not to mention a family who allow her to steal the litter and to traipse around town without her nurse.”
”I feel there may be more to it,” Helena demurred. ”It's no use. We cannot just forget it--Marcus, one of us will have to look into this further.”
However, we had to stop there because of a commotion at the street door when the children returned. The little ones were whimpering, and even Marius looked white.
”Oh, Uncle Marcus, a big dog jumped on Nux and would not get off again.” He was curling up with embarra.s.sment, knowing what the beast had been up to, yet not wanting to say.
”Well, that's wonderful.” I beamed, as Nux shot under the table with a sheepish and disheveled appearance. ”If we end up having dear little scruffy puppies, Marius, you can have first pick!”
As my sister shuddered with horror, Petronius murmured in a hollow aside, ”It's very appropriate, Maia. Their father was a horse vet; you have to allow your dear children to develop their inherited affinity with animals.”
But Maia had decided she had to save them from the bad influence of Petro and me, so she jumped up and bustled them all off home.
XIII.
”WELL, THAT WAS a waste of time!”
I had allowed myself to forget temporarily that Camillus Aelia.n.u.s had somehow lost a corpse. He pounded up our steps and burst into the apartment, scowling with annoyance. I hid a smile. The aristocratic young hero would normally despise everything connected with the role of an informer, yet he had fallen straight into the old trap: faced with an enigma, he felt compelled to pursue it. He would carry on even after he made himself exhausted and furious.
He was both. ”Oh Hades, Falco! You packed me off on a wild errand. Everyone I questioned responded with suspicion, most were rude, some tried to bully me, and one even ran away.”
I would have given him a drink, the traditional restorative, but we had consumed my whole stock that day at lunch. As Helena nudged him to a bench, his mid-brown eyes wandered vaguely as if he were looking for a jug and beaker. All the right instincts were working, though he lacked the sheer cheek to ask for a goblet openly.
”Did you chase him?”
”Who? ”
”The one who ran away. This was, almost certainly, the person you needed to speak to.”
He thought about it. Then he saw what I meant. He banged a clenched fist on his forehead. ”Oh rats, Falco!”
”Would you know him again?”
”A lad. The Brothers have youngsters a.s.signed to them as attendants at their feasts--called camilli, coincidentally. There are only four. I could pick him out.”