One Virgin Too Many

XXX

First, the house.

It looked as dreary as when I came here first with Maia. I felt today's errand was likely to be just as abortive. Visiting for the second time, now that I knew more about the family, I viewed their unappealing home with an even more gloomy sense of mistrust.

Somebody was leaving, just as I arrived. A litter emerged, ebony colored, with heavily drawn gray curtains. It was not the one with the Medusa boss that the Laelii themselves used. A well-wisher, perhaps. Whoever it was, they appeared to be accompanied by their laundry: a short train of slaves followed, one with a bulging clothes hamper and others with smaller baggage items. I refrained from asking the escort who this was; off-putting lads with pug noses walked alongside the litter. They paid as much attention to checking that the half doors were closed and the dark curtains kept tight as they did to surveying the street for menaces. Some husband who did not want his wife leaping out to buy too much from jewelry kiosks, I joked to myself.

After they left, I walked up to the house, thoughtfully. The porter's peephole was shuttered so I stood with my back to the front door as if waiting. Passersby would suppose I had knocked and was waiting. Instead, I listened. This was a house where a young girl had gone missing. There should be panic inside. Every footfall on the front doorstep should make somebody rush to investigate.

Nothing.

I rang a bell which hung on its bracket so stiffly I had to wrench at it with a strength that seemed discourteous. Well, I am a delicate fellow. After an age of extra silence a thin, pale porter answered-a different man from the one who had dismissed Maia and me. I recommended a light application of low-grade olive oil to the bell.

"Don't use fish oil. It stinks. You'll be plagued with cats." He stared at me. "My name is Didius Falco. Your master is expecting me."

He was the kind of slave who only needed firm orders. Any burglar could have effected an entry just by speaking with bravado and a sweet accent. He had no idea what I wanted. I could have been any cheap confidence trickster about to offer the patrician householder a fake set of cheap Greek vases, stolen turnips, or this week's special in curses, guaranteed to rot your enemy's liver within five days or your money back.

I was wearing my toga again. It must have helped. The porter had no sartorial discernment or he would have seen that this garment had once belonged to the army's most disreputable centurion, and that the crumpled moths' delight now spent its idle time on a crude hook which had left a large poke in the wool, just where the swathe was so elegantly flung over my left shoulder.

Whoever he supposed I was, he set off to lead me straight to the old man. Now I was inside at last, I could sense the presence of a large staff. There had to be a steward or chamberlain, yet the porter never thought of consulting a superior about me. It argued a lack of regular dealings with visitors. Still, this saved time.

As I followed my guide, I made rapid observations. After a standard curtained nook where the duty porter sat, we crossed a small hallway tiled in black and gray, then traversed a dark corridor. I could now hear the normal morning noises of a large house: brooms, voices giving domestic instructions. The voices were low, though not exactly hushed. I heard no laughter. No bantering old cooks or larking youths. No dog, no cat, no caged finches. The house was clean, though perhaps not spotless. No bad smells. No particularly pleasant ones either. Neither sandalwood boxes, potted white lilies, nor warm rose balsam bath oil. Either the kitchen was in another part of the house, or today's lunch must be cold.

We had first traversed the atrium. It was old-fashioned and open-roofed, with a small rectangular pool, dry at present. That was because-their first sign of humanity-the Laelii had builders in. Perhaps this was where Gloccus and Cotta bunked off to whenever Helena needed them. If so, here too they were conspicuously absent today, though they could have been sent away because of the trouble over Gaia.

The atrium surrounds had had their walls stripped for repainting, and on one side a small shrine was under construction, the kind of niche where families with well-tended pedigrees keep not just their Lares but ugly busts of their most elevated forebears.

I was taken to a side room. There the porter unceremoniously left me. I began to smell incense: unusual in a private house. The porter had forgotten my name so I had to introduce myself. Luckily, I can do that. I could even name the person I was addressing. It had to be old man Laelius. He might be retired, but he found it impossible to let go. Even now, he wore the robes of his past office: the thick woollen toga praetexta, purple bordered and, according to ritual, woven by the hands of his late wife; and his apex, the conical cap with its earflaps and surmounting olive twig intertwined with white wool.

I took him in quickly. Late sixties, thin-fleshed, wrinkled neck, slightly shaky hands, chin up, a haughty beaked nose to look down and a sneer that went back through five centuries of arrogant ancestors. I had seen him before somewhere; presumably I recognized him from his role in past festivals. It surprised me that I remembered. Until I was landed with the Sacred Geese, I normally stayed in bed during such occurrences.

"Marcus Didius Falco, sir. You must be Publius Laelius Numentinus." He gave me a hard stare, as if he had been the Flamen Dialis for so long it seemed an insult to be addressed by name. But whatever indulgence others granted him, I intended to stick to form. He had retired. The real Flamen Dialis was another man now. He could not complain. I had used his full three names. I used mine too, of course. At one level, we were equal: a democratic joke.

He was enthroned on an ivory stool with arms, like a magistrate. He had been sitting alone in that posture before I entered. Other people might have been reading or writing, but he preferred the brooding stillness of a stone god.

The room was furnished with side tables and lamps, and a small rug lay at his feet, which occupied a footstool. It could have been comfortable, but for the frosty atmosphere.

Helena Justina had brought me up to scratch on flamens when she and I had first talked about Gaia. Jove's priest lived a life so hedged around with restrictive duties he had no time to stray; that was the idea, no doubt. Representing the god, he was untouchable in the strictest sense. When he went out, adding a double cloak to his woolly uniform, he carried a sacrificial knife in one hand (which must have deterred unwelcome contacts) and in the other a long wand with which he kept the populace at a distance. He was preceded by a lictor, but also by criers at whose approach everyone had to lay aside their tasks, for not only was every day a holiday for the Flamen himself (nice life!), but he must never see others working.

There was more. He could not mount, or even touch, a horse. He might not leave the city (except in recent enlightened times, for a maximum of two nights, to carry out unavoidable family duties, if directly sanctioned by the Pontifex Maximus). He could wear no knots (his clothes were fixed with clasps); his rings were split; he was forbidden to name ivy because of its binding properties, or to walk under any pergola that was canopied with vines. If someone in bonds was brought to his house, the fetters were at once struck off and hurled down from the roof; if he encountered a criminal, that person could neither be scourged nor executed. Only a free man could barber a Flamen's beard; it must be cut with a bronze knife; the clippings and his nail trimmings were collected and buried beneath a sacred tree. The Flamen could not remove his tunic or headdress during daylight, lest Jove glimpse his person.

He must avoid dogs (which explained why they had no guard dogs here), she-goats, beans, raw flesh, or fermented dough.

There was probably more, but Helena had seen my eyes glaze over and had spared me. The restrictions seemed outrageous; they were designed to ensure the Flamen never let his mind wander, though he looked to me as if he had retained full control of his thoughts-and his rigid opinions too.

For all that, by virtue of his priesthood, this oddity would have sat in the senate. Still, he probably fitted in among the other eccentrics and crazy men.

Here in his house, everything was arranged to suit his wishes. That did not include me. He looked at me as though I had scuttled out of a drain.

"I understand, sir, that the Emperor has cleared my path with you. Your granddaughter is missing, and I possess experience that may help find her. It is particularly important that you work with me, since you have expressed a wish not to have contact with the vigiles. I regret that. They could have helped save time-and time is vital in a case like this."

"You were recommended as a specialist. Are you saying you are not up to the job?" His voice was thin, his tone edged with malice. I knew what I had here: a wicked old bastard. In families like mine, they wield no power and so can do no harm. This was nothing like my family.

"I shall do my best, sir. You will find it better than average. But success will depend on how much cooperation I receive."

"And what do you offer?"

"A fast, discreet service-on my terms. The most likely solution is that Gaia has imprisoned herself accidentally somewhere in her own home. I have to search your house for hiding places that might attract a child. I have to look everywhere, though you have my assurance that what I see will be immediately forgotten if it is not relevant."

"I understand." His hauteur was chilly.

"I shall knock and wait before entering rooms. I shall give any occupants a chance to remove themselves. I shall work as quickly as I can."

"That is good."

"I do have to be allowed to speak to your family."

"It is acceptable."

"They need not answer any questions they regard as improper, sir." I gave him a level stare. He was intelligent. He knew that refusing fair questions would be informative in itself. "I should also like permission to talk to your staff. It is my intention to limit such interviews. But, for example, Gaia Laelia presumably was entrusted to a nursemaid?"

"There is a girl who looks after her. You may speak to the nurse."

"Thank you." I must be going soft. He did not deserve the restraint I was showing. Still, I could see he expected aggression. I was happy to surprise him.

"And what," asked the ex-Flamen in a tense voice, "are the questions that you wish to put to me?"