Jupiter Myth

XXVII

In the morning the fight still lay like heavy wet flock all around us. Helena rose by herself, made a brisk toilet, and ate breakfast in our room. That was to avoid prying questions at the communal buffet. She offered me nothing, but left enough on the tray if I wanted it. Sulking, I chose to go down to the dining room.

Maia had obviously heard about Chloris. She was in good form. "I always thought she was an evil little cow. And now she's in the arena- that's a disgrace. You'd let a woman like that threaten all you have nowadays? So how would you feel, Marcus, if Helena Justina divorced you?"

"Dumb question!" The tray upstairs in private became increasingly alluring; too late. I plucked a roll from a basket and sank my teeth into it.

We were hardly heading for divorce. Mind you, all Helena and I had done in order to call ourselves married was to choose to live together; to end it, she only had to leave me. Roman law is extremely reasonable on these issues. Unreasonably so, many a client of mine would say.

My sister smirked self-righteously. "I thought we were shot of that schemer years ago. Don't tell Mother that you saw her."

"Get this straight. Chloris is past history, Maia. I'll leave you to break the news to Ma about your slimy new beau, the music lover!"

"He has invited me to his villa, downriver."

"What a terrible chatting-up line."

"I may go."

"You may regret it then."

Helena entered the dining room, smart and ready for action. No glance passed between her and Maia; some women plunge into heart-searching with their girlfriends when they are distressed, but Helena shunned feminine conspiracy. That was why I liked her. She brought her problems to me: even when I was the problem. "I have been thinking, Marcus. You ought to talk to Albia about how Verovolcus died. She was always hanging around bars; she may have seen something."

"Good idea."

"I shall come too."

I knew when to accept matrimonial help. "That will be nice."

"Don't fool yourself," she said, ever honest. "I am watching what you are up to."

I quirked up an eyebrow playfully. "All day?"

"All day," she confirmed soberly.

I smiled and turned back to Maia. "By the way, I saw Petro yesterday."

"Lucky you."

I could tell that Helena thought I had just made it more likely my sister would be wafting down the River Thamesis for pastries and heavy seduction attempts at the Norbanus villa.

I now noticed that Maia's son Marius had been sitting under a side table feeding his dog. The look he gave me was inscrutable.

Where was my own dog?

"I gave Nux to Albia to comfort her last night," Helena said. "You read my thoughts, Helena. Better face it. We think the same way; we're a pair."

"Oh, I know that!" she roared. It caused consternation among the slaves mopping a corridor. I managed a good kick at their water bucket as we walked past. "Marcus-try deciding what you want in life, so we can all get on with it."

I stopped dead and spun her around to face me. The wet tiled floor made her skid slightly and I had to grab her hard. "I was captured. Nothing happened. Don't waste effort wondering what I might have done. Here I am."

Helena scowled. "That's easy to say when you are safe here. What happens when you vanish into the stews and slums?"

"You have to take that on trust."

"Trusting you is rather tiring, Marcus."

She did look worn. She had two young children, one still being breast-fed. Our attempt at taking on a nursemaid had been more trouble than not having one. There had been some respite for her here at her aunt's house, where there was practical help, but all the time she knew- indeed, I knew too-that we would be going home to Rome soon. Our endlessly demanding children would once again be all ours, and when I went out working she cared for them alone. If anything ever happened to me, Julia and Favonia would be her sole responsibility. Our mothers supported her-while causing more stress by bickering with each other. Ultimately, Helena spent a lot of time by herself, wondering where I was and what danger I was in.

Helena was worldly. She knew any man could stray. As soon as she saw Chloris she must have thought my day had come.

I did admit, it must have looked as if I thought that too. I could hardly blame Helena. How was I to foresee that M. Didius Falco, infamous lad about the metropolis, would end up being such a good boy?

Albia was skulking nervously. Do not imagine that rescue from brutal prostitution had made the girl grateful. In the part of my life I never talked about, I had been an army scout. During close contact with the enemy, as the tribes were then, I had had a few dealings with the boot-faced element of British society. The don't-know, not-heard-of-that, never-saw-anything mob were as active here as in the criminal slums below the Esquiline in Rome, and being a conquered people gave Britons special rights in unhelpfulness. Routinely, they made life awkward for anyone Roman, often in very subtle ways. Albia had absorbed all that.

"Albia, you and I need to talk." As I tackled the girl, Helena was shooing away children. They had clustered defensively around their returned friend; I hoped these innocents had no idea of her adventure with the prostitution ring. Nux, convinced as ever that she was the joy of my heart, left Albia's side and climbed all over me. I had made the mistake of sitting down. I was trying to look nonthreatening. When the dog saw I was accessible, she jumped straight up on me. A hot tongue busily licked anatomical crannies that might need a wash. Albia said nothing.

"Now don't look so afraid." Waste of breath. The girl crouched on a stool, expressionless. "Stop it, Nux… down, stupid doggie! Albia, the other night-" It felt about two weeks ago, though it was only four days. "A man was killed. It happened at the Shower of Gold. He was pushed down the well, upside down. He drowned."

Albia still only gave me the wounded, empty stare of the destitute. Her face seemed whiter than ever, her spirit even more crushed.

"You are safe here," Helena told her. Nux abandoned me and rushed over to Helena, clambering up on her lap. Helena subdued the dog with the competence she used to control our children. "Albia, tell Didius Falco if you saw anything that night."

"No." Was that saw nothing, or wouldn't tell?

Nux looked from one to another of us, intrigued.

"Were you in the Shower of Gold, or anywhere near it, that night?" I repeated.

"No." Useless. I was trying to net moonlight.

The more times she denied it, the more I doubted her word. Even if the desperate people did not lie, they withheld information. But if they could get away with it, they lied. Truth was power. To keep it gave them a last shred of hope. To pass it on left them utterly exposed.

"Albia!" Even Helena sounded sharp. "Nobody will harm you if you talk about this. Falco will arrest the men who did it."

"I was not there."

Even though Albia was so uncommunicative, I could tell one thing: she was absolutely terrified.

"Well, that was a dead loss." I tried not to gloat.

"I'm really annoyed with her." At least Helena did not blame me. "Albia's a silly girl."

"She's just scared. She's been scared all her life."

"Well, haven't we all!" From Helena Justina that was a shock. I stared. She pretended she had not said it.

"Now can I go out to play?" I whined.

"Things to do, Marcus."

"What things, beloved?"

"Have a look at the lawyer, say."

"Your friend Popillius?" I hoped in vain for praise that I remembered his name.

"I don't feel friendly towards him and he's not mine."

"Good. I can put up with a lot," I joked, "but if you run off with a legal man, that's it, my girl!"

"Really?" she demanded in a light tone.

"Oh yes." I frowned. "Dearest, you know that I cannot stand lawyers."

The day was looking up. Popillius was presumably slick-aren't they all in their business references?-but I found him in the act of being fleeced.

Helena had to let me out to conduct this next interview. She came with me, however. I waited patiently while she first fed Favonia; it gave me a chance to make snooty remarks about wishing my daughters to lead a quiet domestic life, not to be dragged out to unsuitable venues as they were last night. That enabled Helena to say she wished I could set them a good example then. Thus sniping, though cheerfully, we steamed off in a morning that was still good and hot, to a small rented house where a lawyer had set up in business. Despite a flamboyant chalked sign outside that promised the best prosecutions north of the Alps and tactful, cheap defense speeches, clients had yet to take advantage of the services he offered. I looked for a no-win, no-fee notice but of course failed to find it.

Popillius sat sunbathing in a courtyard, where he waited for all those people who wanted outrageous compensation for wrongs. While at a loose end, he had been found by a British entrepreneur. A shy-looking hopeful had wandered in from the street. He had tufty hair and wide-apart short legs, and had set out a big flat tray of carved jet jewelry and trifles.

There were more of these jet-sellers than fleas on a cat; there always had been. In reality the soldiers in the legions, wanting presents for their girlfriends, snapped up the best-quality stuff while they were up on the frontier. In most parts of southern Britain there was as much chance of buying genuine sea-washed black stuff from Brigantia as of finding real turquoise scarabs beside the Pyramids in Alexandria.

I liked this seller's patter. He owned up that there was fakery in the trade. His cheeky premise was that the best fakes were so good it was worth buying them in their own right. He was promising to let the lawyer corner the market, in the hope he would later make a killing when the fake stuff became openly collectible.

Helena and I watched peacefully. As Popillius set about fetching the cash for his hoard, we parked under what would have been a fig tree if we were in the Mediterranean. Here it was some anonymous bush. Someone appeared to be aware of the concept of shady courtyards with cool pergolas, though if you looked more closely, the yard had been recently used for keeping draft animals. It must have been roughly cleaned up for the lawyer when he wanted to rent.

The jet salesman made a feeble attempt to interest us, indicating that I should buy a trinket for Helena. He could see what a mistake that was. She herself rebuffed him. I waved him away more gently. "Sorry, pal; left my purse in the bedroom." He knew I was lying, but he strolled off happily with his profits from the lawyer.

Popillius was a clean-cut sandy type. Thirties, maybe. Not quite too young to carry professional weight, but giving the impression he had energy and ambition, as well as his cynical greed for fees. He had a light, upper-crust voice, which was hard to place. A new man quite recently, I would say, maybe with grandparents who made it into the middle class, provincials even. Close enough for infant Popillius to have heard their tales of backwoods life, and to be sufficiently enthralled to tackle a remote province himself. Either that, or he absconded with a client's funds and had needed to leave Rome fast.

"This is my husband, Didius Falco," Helena said. "I mentioned him last night." She had not told me I had been discussed. Now I was stuck, not knowing what role she had assigned me. I grinned sheepishly.

"Greetings, Falco." Thank goodness, Popillius himself had no recollection of his chat at dinner with Helena. He was desperately trying to remember who and what I was, though he did remember Helena. Jealousy works two ways: I hoped he did not remember her too well. Lawyers womanize almost as hard as they drink. I knew; I had met plenty in my work.

We talked a bit about what Popillius hoped for in Britain. I suggested he was a slave-chaser, suing people for the return of runaways or for seducing someone else's human property. He reckoned British society was insufficiently slave-oriented to bring in much business of that type. "There are slaves condemned to hard labor; they simply slog until they die, in remote locations. Domestically, if a household owns a couple of little kitchen workers, that's it. They are far too well treated-they end up marrying the master or the mistress. No incentive to run away, and they don't even seem to get laid by the neighbors much."

"Ah, what you need are big estates where the labor force is money; if a body goes missing, it's a commercial loss."

"Better still, I need to be able to demand compensation for expensive Greek accountants, masseurs, and musicians!" Popillius laughed.

"You have looked into the prospects, then?" I asked.

"Only joking," he fibbed. "Bringing a high-class legal service to the province is my mission. I want to do commercial and maritime casework."

I told him that was highly commendable. He seemed unused to irony.

"Sorry, Falco-I don't recall what your wife said you do?"

Sometimes I cannot be bothered to bluff. "Government work. I'm looking into a suspicious death that seems to be gangster-related."

Popillius raised his light-colored eyebrows. "That is surely not why you have come to visit me?" If he was offended, he was working out just how wronged, financially, he intended to be.

"I am looking at everyone," I assured him gently. "I hate to disappoint you, but letting me eliminate you from my inquiry won't lead to slander fees!"

Popillius gave me a level, warning stare. "I don't bother with slander claims, Falco."

The implication was that if I upset him, he would do for me in much more dangerous ways.

I smiled. "How long have you been in the province?"

"Just a couple of days." Not enough to be my suspect-if it was the truth.

"Ever found your way to a drinking dive called the Shower of Gold?"

"Never. I prefer to entertain myself at home, with a well-aged amphora."

"Very wise," I said. "You can buy a good Italian variety, even this far north. Let it settle well. Then dribble it through a wine-strainer two or three times-and pour it down a drain. Table wines from Germany and Gaul seem to survive the route march better."

"Thank you for your advice," he replied.

"It's no trouble," I said.

There was no point hanging around just to discuss his gustation habits. Lawyers are snobs. He was bound to believe in more expensive vintages than I ever thought worthwhile for home consumption with a pan-fried mullet. The grand wines of the Empire stood no chance of traveling well so far as this, but I deduced it would be hard to shake his prejudice.

I could see no sign that he had companions staying here, and if he had only just arrived, what new friends could he possibly have made? So the big question was, when Popillius poured the precious grape of an evening, who shared it with him?

We left, no better and no worse informed than when we came. Slowly we walked back toward the residence. Both Helena and I were mulling over what kind of man this lawyer seemed to be, and what his real quality was. I was paying little attention to our surroundings and less to passersby.

But I was all there when a familiar voice hissed at me from a doorway: "Marcus darling, come over here! I must have a little word with you-" Chloris!