Part 10 (1/2)

Ma and I exchanged glances, willing to go along with any plan that made my sister behave like her old self, at least temporarily. My mother took charge of Julia for me. In no time I found myself marching over the Aventine with Maia, and after a few wrong turns while we found the address, we were surveying the house of the family Laelius. I was not impressed. Maia and I immediately agreed that as prospective buyers or tenants, even if we were desperate, we would never even have given it a once-over.

Who chose this place? The ex-Flamen himself, grief-stricken for his newly dead wife--or at least for the loss of his position on her death? His son, Gaia's father? His errand-running son-in-law, the Flamen Pomonalis? Accepting that his household might be as liberal as my own, was it his womenfolk? Daughter? Daughter-in-law?

No. It had to be a realtor. Wincing at the gloomy place from down the street, I knew this was some housing market hack's idea of a residence for a retired high priest. A ma.s.sive gray portico that must be causing street subsidence. High, narrow windows and mean roofs. A pair of tall urns either side of the forbidding doorcase, both empty. A property with no attractive features, situated in a dull area, overlooking nothing much. A large, cold building on the dank side of the street, it must have lodged like a permanent fixture on the agent's list for a decade. Few people with enough money to afford such an edifice would have such poor taste as to accept it. But a Flamen Dialis, turfed out of his state residence, fresh from a funeral, unworldly and desperate to be rehoused, must have seemed to the agent like a gift from the Olympian G.o.ds. The proverbial soft touch. A gambler in a hurry, with absolutely no idea . . . and too sure of himself to take real expert advice.

”I hope he's not there,” muttered Maia. ”I deduce I will not care for him.”

”Right. Judging by his att.i.tude to my goslings, he's what Ma would call a nasty old basket.”

We were not given a chance to test this theory. When we managed to persuade a door porter to answer our knocking, he told us there was n.o.body home at all. The man kept us out on the porch; he agreed to go and make enquiries for us, though I wondered how, because he had a.s.sured us the entire family had gone to a funeral. Even the Flamen Dialis (as the porter still called him despite his retirement) was attending the ceremony.

Maia raised her eyebrows. ”The Flamen Dialis is never allowed to see a body, but he can go to funerals,” I whispered, showing off my arcane knowledge, as we stood nervously alone on the threshold like untrustworthy trinket-sellers who were about to be sent packing. ”Just as well he has gone. He would never have liked hearing that you had palled up with Caecilia.”

”He won't like hearing we were here today at all then,” Maia said. She made no attempt to keep her voice down. ”I fancy Caecilia will receive a lecture about mingling with unsuitable company. Encouraging rough callers. Allowing common connections for the dear special little girl.”

”Caecilia sounds all right after all.”

Maia laughed ruefully. ”Don't believe it, Marcus. But the Flamen won't know it was no choice of hers that I sought her out at home.”

”Are you saying he mistreats her?”

”Oh no. I just reckon his word is law and his opinions are the only ones ever allowed to be voiced.”

”Sounds like our house, when Pa lived there,” I joked. Maia and I were both silent for a moment, remembering our childhood. ”So the Flamen is bound to be rude, autocratic, and unfriendly--but do we believe he wants his precious little Gaia dead?”

”If he shows his face I'll ask him that.”

”You'll what what?”

”Nothing to lose,” said Maia. ”I'll tell him as one mother to another, I want to ask Caecilia Paeta what has caused her sweet little girl--the dear new friend of mine--to be so unhappy and to take such a curious step as to approach my brother the informer with such a ridiculous tale.”

Perhaps it was fortunate after all that the porter then returned to confirm there was no one at home to speak to us. He was now accompanied by a couple of reinforcements. It was clear they were intended to persuade us to leave quietly. I would like to say that was what we did, but I had Maia with me. She hung around, insisting on leaving a message for Caecilia Paeta to say that she had called.

While she was still hara.s.sing the porter, a woman appeared in the rather dark atrium that we could just glimpse over his shoulder. She looked about the right age to be Gaia's mother, so I asked, ”That your friend?”

As Maia peered in and shook her head, the young woman was surrounded by a group of females who must be her attendants; they all moved as one out of view again. It seemed a strangely ch.o.r.eographed little scene, as though the maids had swept up their mistress and she succ.u.mbed to being whisked away.

”Who was that?” Maia demanded bluntly, but the porter looked vague and pretended he had seen no one.

After we left, the odd glimpse stayed with me. The woman had had the air of a member of the family, not a slave. She had walked towards us as if she was ent.i.tled to come and speak to us--yet she seemed to let the maids change her mind for her. Well, I was probably making too much of it.

Maia allowed me to escort her home again, and I collected Julia. When we left my sister's house, outside in the street a group of little girls was playing a Vestal Virgins game. These were not pampered babies in some careful patrician residence. The tough Aventine tots not only had a stolen water jug to carry on their heads, but had obtained some embers and had lit themselves a Sacred Fire on their own little Sacred Hearth. Unfortunately, they had chosen to re-create the Temple of Vesta rather close to a house with a very attractive set of wooden balconies, some of which were now on fire. As it was not on Maia's side of the street, I carried on walking in the traditional manner. I don't like getting young girls into trouble. Anyway, they had looked as if they would bash my head in if I interfered.

Around the corner, I did pa.s.s a group of vigiles sniffing for the smoke. My guess was they had had to endure rather a lot of tiny female arsonists since the Vestals' lottery was announced. The sooner the Pontifex Maximus pulled out a name, the better for everyone.

XVII.

FOUNTAIN COURT SEEMED quiet when Julia and I returned home. The sensible after-lunch drunks had collapsed on the side of the street with the dank shadows and old cabbage leaves. The daft ones opposite would have fiercely sunburned foreheads, noses, and knees when they woke up. A feral cat mewed hopefully, but kept well away from my boot. Disreputable pigeons were picking over what the down-and-outs had left them from the charred bread Ca.s.sius, our local baker, had chucked out when he shut up his stall for the day. Flies had found half a melon to torment.

There were empty stools outside the barber's shop. A thin pall of black smoke hung over one end of the street, reeking of burned lamp oil; sulfurous fumes rose from the back of the laundry. I thought about checking how the goslings were, now they lived in the laundry yard, but Julia and I were weary after half a day doing nothing in particular. My neighbors were taking their usual siestas, which for most of those idlers meant all-day ones, so the man who walked up the street ahead of us stood out alone. I had seen him emerge from the funeral parlor, clearly repeating directions. I can't think why he had asked the undertakers for information, given the number of family mausoleums that end up containing urns with the wrong ashes due to those incompetents.

This fellow ahead of me was of average height, whiskery, hairy-armed, brisk in his walk, dressed in a dark tunic and rather floppy calf-high boots. He checked outside the basket weaver's lockup as though he was going in there; then he skipped up the steps to the first-floor apartment where I lived.

Whatever he wanted, I was in no real mood for strangers, so I stopped off to talk to Lenia. She was outside her business premises, in the part of the street she had commandeered for clothes-drying; the morning wash was twisting about on several lines in a slight breeze, and with an irritated expression she was listlessly straightening the most tangled wet garments. When she saw me, she gave up immediately.

”G.o.ds, last day of May and it's too hot to move!”

”Talk to me, Lenia. Some beggar just went up to our house, and I can't be bothered going to find out if he's someone who wants to annoy me.”

”Just now?” croaked Lenia. ”Some other beggar went up to look for you too.”

”Oh good. They can annoy one another while I have a rest down here.”

I leaned my backside against the portico. Lenia took Julia by both arms and practiced walking her a few steps. Julia grabbed a dripping toga, with hands that had somehow grown more grubby than I had realized.

We heard a yell from the apartment.

”Who was your beggar?” I asked Lenia lazily.

”Young chap with purple trim on his tunic. Yours?”

”No idea.”

”Mine said he knew you, Falco.”

”Permanent look as if his breakfast is giving him gyp?”

”That's the pug-faced darling, by the sound of it.”

”Helena's brother. The one we don't care for. Sounds as if the man I followed home agrees.” The yelling continued. ”Helena isn't up there, as far as you know, Lenia?”

”Doubt it. She borrowed one of my washtubs. She'll drop it in when she comes home.”

”Know where she went with this tub?” I tried. Lenia just laughed.

There were a few more yells from opposite. I might have changed my mind and intervened, but someone else turned up to help with the heavy work, so I hid behind a wet sheet. It was Pa. As soon as he heard sounds of trouble, he rushed up the stairs to see the fun. He barged in and added his voice to the shouting, then Lenia and I watched him and Camillus Aelia.n.u.s appear outside on the porch, grappling the man with the floppy boots. They were dragging him half on his knees, an arm apiece. Since they seemed to know what they were doing, I just grinned to myself and let the officious pair get on with it.

They began forcing him down the steps, but soon found that holding him between them while they also descended was too difficult. As they all tumbled back to street level, inevitably they let him go. He made off. If he had come past me I might have shoved out a foot and tripped him, but his luck was in; he went the other way.

I winked at Lenia and sauntered across to the heroes who were offering mutual congratulations on the way they had saved my apartment from attempted robbery.

”I see you elected to show mercy,” I commented sarcastically, leading them indoors again. ”You let him go, very kindly.”

”Well, we drove him off for you,” gasped Pa, who always took time to regain his breath after a fracas. Not that it ever stopped him, if he saw something stupid to join in. ”Jove knows what he thought he could lift from this place.” As a professional auctioneer, Pa lived among a treasure trove of furniture and objects. He found our austere living quarters unsettling. Still, keeping our valuables in store at his warehouse meant Helena and I did not have to worry about losing them to some light-fingered Aventine lowlife. (That's a.s.suming Pa himself kept his hands off our stuff; I had to check up on him regularly.) ”He was no thief,” I corrected quietly.