Graveyard of the Hesperides

X

Breakfast was our special time. This had started when we would meet as if by chance and sit together in my aunt’s caupona. At the Stargazer, you had to converse to stop losing your grip on life. Talking together was easy, we had found, even though we were both by nature reticent. So, we became friends over the Stargazer’s granite bread and fatty meats. I would watch Faustus mentally assessing how the waiter, whoever it was that day, had given us the least possible number of olives he could serve without having the pottery saucer thrown at his head. Those bite bowls are small but carry weight, as any scavenger knows. I had had them flung at me, back in Londinium.

After a few Stargazer breakfasts, I noticed Faustus was not in fact auditing the nibbles but taking an interest in me.

Now we were living together, he would probably go back to real olive-counting. He was an aedile. Monitoring behavior was his favorite task. I let him get on with it. Supervising waiters was better than imagining he could supervise me.

In daylight today, we were able to spot remnants of the ancient market that must have originally given the Ten Traders its name. There were single-room shops, each with a vaulted roof and a room above, like the one where we were staying. Early in the morning the bars were closed-well, around here you could still get a drink, and I don’t mean water-while shops we had not seen yesterday afternoon now opened and revealed their presence. Dry goods and fresh greens mostly. One of the scroll-sellers for which the Argiletum was supposedly famous. A cutler, so people in the bars could buy bone-handled dinner knives to stick into other people they argued with.

A sign said an apothecary lived in one of the upstairs rooms, ready to run out with salves for any nonfatal knife wounds. He claimed he also sold love potions. He risked having an aedile raid him, to root out magic. Like plenty of others the seller clung on, purveying herbs that worked and incantations that didn’t, pills that put you on a bucket all night and powders that claimed to make you irresistible to others, but might kill you.

On the Vicus Longus we found a streetside snackery that was being swept clean by a worn woman, while her thin-faced daughter served a few rolls and cheese wedges to passing workers. Rather than have us clutter up their counter, they put out a bench for us to sit on.

We each reported on yesterday’s efforts. When I expressed anxiety that Tiberius was wearing himself out, he reassured me. He said nothing about progress on the house, although I gathered he had been there. He had told the aediles’ office he was “going to his villa at the seaside”; apparently no magistrate was ever expected to work in the August heat, although Manlius Faustus must be the only one in history who was too poor to own a holiday home. He was arguing with his uncle over his right to draw cash from their family finances. He would never prise money out of Uncle Tullius for luxuries. Business deals were hard enough to fund.

Meanwhile he had left Julia and Favonia with a wedding-guest list. When they applied themselves to something they wanted to do, my younger sisters could be meticulous. They had Katutis, Father’s secretary, writing out invitations; between them there was no chance any awful relative would be left out. Any day now, this event would be scribbled on everyone’s calendar. I was stuck.

I mentioned that I had myself hired victimarii and an augur. My bridegroom looked annoyed. He pointed out, mildly, that since I had refused to take any interest, he and his helpers had fixed all the details; we must avoid duplication, he pompously decreed-practicing for the day he could thunder around as head of the household. Practicing how to ignore that, I said Julia and Favonia would be delighted when they saw the hunks.

“You’re marrying me, remember. Not some bastard bunch of bare-chested bull-despatchers,” growled Tiberius. I smiled dreamily. “What?” he demanded.

“Remembering you in bed!” I murmured, so he pretended not to blush, while sweetly proud of himself. Men are so easy to manage.

Faustus nudged me in the ribs with an elbow, fully aware of my tactics. “And what kind of horrible heartthrob is your augur?”

“Haven’t seen him. Supposedly he is top quality-all we have to do is send a note beforehand and he will foresee everything we ask for.”

“Can’t he ‘foresee’ what we want without being fed instructions? I’d like a long life with a darling wife who is never cheeky.”

“Sorry, sir, I can’t do lack of cheek. That omen has been discontinued. Even the gods have limitations.”

While Tiberius chewed the rim of his beaker, I recapped what I had learned yesterday from my various interrogations, especially from Costus and his crew. “I discount the possibility that Rufia fell victim to some stalker who grabbed her on her way home to Mucky Mule Mews. I think she must have been killed at the bar. So we have either she was an abused girlie bashed by a degenerate landlord claiming employer’s rights, probably drunk at the time, or she was a stroppy piece who quarreled and, if you believe in the concept, ‘brought it on herself.’ I’m not there yet-I need to ask around more.”

Tiberius agreed we should persuade someone with anatomical knowledge to examine the bones. We had brought them out with us, like some pet that needed exercising. He was going to the local vigiles, the Third Cohort, to report our find, so he would ask if their doctor or someone else with expertise could pronounce for us.

We settled our breakfast bill, which meant I paid it, because of Uncle Tullius.

Gazing at the older woman as she counted the coins, I was sure she had been listening to our conversation. She said nothing but I knew what this wily bird had been up to while she innocently wiped down her counter.

“I presume you’re not a customer of the Garden of the Hesperides?” I asked, gently letting her know I had spotted her eavesdropping. Now it was the daughter’s turn to listen in. She too said nothing.

The Hesperides was just out of sight, though very close by. The mother shook her head, pinching her mouth. She was a hardworking scrap who looked affronted at the suggestion that she might lower herself to take a tipple in a wine bar. “A body has been found there. I expect you heard about it?” Again, she pretended to look shocked. I do not listen to common gossip, Flavia Albia! Classic. She could have been my Aventine granny biffing me with a dishcloth for impudence.

I spotted her having a good squint at our bag of bones.

Faustus and I went to the Hesperides.

Immediately we were assailed by Dromo, complaining. He couldn’t be expected to live in a place full of dead bodies, he hadn’t had a wink of sleep, the watchman had been cruel to him, and nobody had given him any breakfast.

“Come with me,” said Faustus calmly. “I’ll buy you a flatbread on the way.”

“You tell your kindly master all about it, Dromo!” I had listened carefully to the slave’s moans in case he had seen anything useful. After all, he had spent the night at a newly discovered crime scene. Anything could have happened. I did not spell it out to him, but perpetrators sometimes do return.

“I don’t find my master kind, Flavia Albia.”

“Yes, he is. Be good and maybe Manlius Faustus will let you carry the bag of bones.”

“I’m not going to touch a dead person!”

“Lucky for you, then, these are in a rubble basket,” his master barked as he handed over the remains; they set off, still bickering in their normal way. I went into the courtyard, which the watchman, Trypho, opened up for me before he curled up to sleep on a pallet in the bar. Alone, I gazed around, considering the place with new eyes.

The project, which I considered ridiculous, was that the small outdoor area would be given one of those canals people create in fancy outdoor dining rooms, down which lamps and little food dishes are floated, generally to sink with their contents. Opposite the bar end, a daft grotto had been created, with shell decorations and a small mosaic of Oceanus wreathed in sparkly glass seaweed. A so-called specialist had provided that; I knew, because Faustus had had a row with him because he was preoccupied with some designer villa and had sent his apprentice. The apprentice had never been properly taught, though he was a bright lad who learned on the job. His right-hand seaweed ringlets were much better than his left. Customers in the know would be asking for the table by the fig tree, on Oceanus’ good side.

The fig tree was new. They were fan-training it on one courtyard wall, in theory. The builders must have planted it; nobody had told them to contain the roots. In a few years the monster would be forty feet high, so when hard, unripe fruit fell from the topmost branches, gravity would make it bounce on the drinkers’ heads with knockout force. Or worse, the figs would splash into their beakers, spilling their drinks.

That would be if the tree lived. The sapling looked sick. There was no water on-site at the moment. The workmen had filled in a well with concrete. They were supposed to be arranging a connection from an aqueduct to supply the water feature, and include the kitchen, but the new landlord had just been told its horrifying cost. He had balked. Faustus, who had inherited all this barmy design, had promised to quote for other options, although now the well was out of action there were none. Like any experienced contractor, Faustus was simply waiting for the client to give in and pay, knowing Liberalis was desperate to have his bar back.

Rufia’s bones had been below the opposite wall to the fig tree. As far as I could tell, the men had only been digging there so that they could bury their lunch wrappings and a smelly sack, the traditional way builders avoid removing rubbish from a site.

Returning to the corridor that led back indoors, I spotted a narrow staircase. It must lead to the upstairs rooms where customers obtained “extras.” It was steep and dark, with dirty treads and dusty walls. Pulling my skirts in, I climbed up to explore. Three curtained doorways clustered around a top landing that was fit only for mountain goats. With no natural light, it was barely negotiable. I banged my head on a suspended phallic lamp. That would help at night, and gave a clue as to what went on here, although no one but an idiot would blunder up accidentally. Still, idiots do go to bars.

Poking back the first spidery curtain, I found a bare cubicle with an unmade single bed. No surprise. There was no other furniture. No hospitality tray (I jest), not even a chamber pot. As a bower of delight it was crude, though much as I expected.

“Five star!” I exclaimed out loud, sarcastically allocating the kind of mansio grade you see on high-class traveling maps. I did not suppose many high-class travelers ever found their way to the Hesperides, but strangers in a city can make mistakes. Well, who hasn’t accidentally wandered into a den of sin when merely looking for a quiet chickpea supper?

As I turned to investigate the other two rooms, I received a shock that nearly made me tumble downstairs. Somebody was there.

“Hades!” I was scared, I admit.

A man in a one-armed unbelted tunic had stuck his head out of a room, looking to see who I was. The occupant of the other room zipped back his door curtain too; he was naked. He had an extremely hairy chest; I tried not to look any lower down. I fancied I heard females in the background, though with these narrow doorways people inside the rooms were hidden. Judging by how the two men looked, anyone they had lured in here could not be picky.

Though startled, I managed to accost them: “Nipius and Natalis, I presume? You work here when the bar is open? Well, I am Flavia Albia, looking into the unpleasant finds the workmen dug up yesterday. I suggest you both put your clothes on straight away, and come downstairs to help with my inquiries!”