Time To Depart

XXXVIII

MAIA WAS THE kind of organiser generals love. She had put terror into the men of our family. Their response to her instructions to converge on Fountain Court to search for little Tertulla was mindless obedience; even Marius, the dedicated scholar, had abandoned his grammar homework. I was impressed. My brothers-in-law arrived all at once – all except the water boatman, Lollius. He was the missing child's father. It was too much to expect that creep to take an interest. Not even Galla, his wife, ever expected any support from Lollius.

The other four were bad enough. What a gang! In order of my sisters' seniority, they were:

Mico. The unemployed, unemployable plasterer. Pasty-faced and eternally perky. He was bringing up five children on his own, now his wife Victorina had died. He was doing it badly. Everyone felt obliged to say at least he was trying. The children would have stood more chance of surviving if he sailed off to Sicily and never came back. But Mico defended his useless role like a fighter. He would never give up.

Verontius. Allia's treasure. A shifty, untrustworthy road contractor who smelt of fish pickle and unwashed armpits. You would think he had been heaving shovels all day long when all he really did was codge together contracts. No wonder he sweated. The lengths he went to to defraud the government were tortuous. A glance at Verontius looking half-asleep and guilty was enough to explain all the potholes in the Via Appia.

Gaius Baebius. Utter tedium. A ponderous customs-clerk organiser who thought he knew it all. He knew nothing, especially about home improvements, a subject on which he liked to expound for hours. Gaius Baebius had brought Ajax, his and Junia's spoiled, uncontrollable watchdog. Apparently some clown had decided Ajax could sniff one of Tertulla's shoes, then trace her movements. Gaius and Ajax arrived in a lather of paws and untidy black fur, then we had to lock Nux in my bedroom to stop Ajax attacking her (he already had a history of violence).

Famia. Maia's darling was the best of the bunch, though I have to report Famia was a slit-eyed, red-nosed drunk who would have regularly cheated on Maia if he could have found the energy. While she brought up their children, he whiled away his life as a chariot-horse vet. He worked for the Greens. I support the Blues. Our relationship could not and did not flourish.

Everyone milled around noisily to start with. Some of the brothers-in-law looked as if they had hoped we would give up the idea of a search and all sit down with an amphora. Helena disabused them crisply. Then we had the inevitable jokes about the skip baby, mostly suggesting he was some unfortunate relic of my bachelor past. I dealt with that one. There was one good side to my male relations. Since they were married to my sisters, they had all learned to be swiftly subdued by sarcasm.

As there was no one else at home to look after the children (except his old mother, who had gone to play dice tonight at a caupona by the Temple of Isis), Mico had brought his three youngest. These unpleasant mites had to be kept amused, given copious drinks, and protected from Gaius and Junia's dog.

`He loves children!' protested Gaius Baebius, as Ajax strained at the flimsy string on his collar and tried to reduce Mico's family to something he could bury under Gaius' home-built sun-yourself pilastered breakfast patio. Then Ajax was offered a shoe, so he could do his stuff as a tracker. He just worried the shoe, thinking it was a dead rat. Gaius Baebius blustered about, looking embarrassed and blaming everyone else.

Helena took charge, supported by young Marius. They gave each brother-in-law a sector to search, and ordered them to question shopkeepers and locals whether anyone had seen Tertulla earlier that day; then they organised my various nephews to act as runners if any information were found.

`You coming, Falco?'

`Marcus has been gated.' Helena made out that I had been seriously wounded that day. I know how to look pale in a crisis; I had been in the army for seven years. The mob dispersed without me. Gaius took his watchdog. Mico's children clung to their father and left with him. Silence descended. Helena started spooning porridge into the skip baby. It would be a long, messy process. I went into my bedroom for a quiet lie-down. I wanted to think about the interesting information that the physician who had told Nonnius Albius he was dying had lied to him, and that that physician just happened to have a brother working in the public sector – alongside Petronius.

As soon as I stretched out, easing my sore arm, Nux jumped straight on the end and settled as if she thought it was her role in life to sleep on her master's bed.

`Stop warming my feet. I'm not your master!'

Nux opened one eye, put out a long pink tongue, and wagged her tail enthusiastically.