Graveyard of the Hesperides

XLVII

I gathered my skirts so I could walk as fast as Tiberius; we hurried back to Mucky Mule Mews. Passing through the gawpers, we applied solemn expressions as if we had a further formality to carry out and reentered Gavius’ home. There, the doctor told us the “dead man” was still breathing even now. The wound had been dressed. With attention, the medico thought Gavius might be saved, though it was not certain. We swore him to secrecy, then paid him off.

The plan Tiberius had was to quickly tell the parents, but nobody else. For one thing, he did not want a killer returning to finish the job. He also felt it might be useful to let any assailant believe the attack had succeeded.

Tiberius discovered there was a narrow walkway behind the buildings here. He went by himself while I sat with the patient. I dreaded to think what an alley behind Mucky Mule Mews was like but it allowed Tiberius to pick his way along, unseen, in order to fetch Gavius’ mother and father. With instructions from the doctor, they would secretly tend their boy. They were a devoted family and he was physically strong. If he recovered enough to talk, they would send us a message.

We installed the parents as nurses, then we left; this time we did go back to the Vicus Longus.

It was still morning, though after such emotional upheaval it felt as if hours had passed. By mutual agreement, we went straight to the Brown Toad. One of the boy-girls was outside with a hand mirror, applying more Egyptian-mummy eyeliner. He-she called out lewd overtures to me, then when that failed tried Tiberius-even more of a mistake.

“Shut up and show me your registration, please.”

“What?”

“When you first took up your degrading profession, you should have put yourself on the prostitutes’ roll. I am a plebeian aedile, you just propositioned me. I never screw illegals. I want to inspect your certificate.”

The pretty thing jumped up and fled with a string of curses.

I gazed at my bridegroom. “If he had been legal, would screwing be considered?”

“Just talk.”

I left the officious Manlius Faustus on the bench outside, ready to harass members of the public; now he had started being doctrinaire, he needed to work it out of his system. He was in a starchy mood because of what happened to Gavius.

The lethargic waitress drooped out from the bar, to offer him a free drink. She must have overheard who he was. Tiberius asked for a jug of water. She was too limp even to look scandalized.

I passed indoors where, as I expected, Gran was rustling up today’s big cauldron of “staff” hot pot. “You’re too early! Give me a chance, girl.” Since I knew she was grandma to Gavius, Tiberius’ plan of secrecy was putting me in a tricky position. I put off telling her.

I squashed myself neatly on a stool, keeping out of her way. I had been in a grandmother’s kitchen while she knocked up dishes; I had been trained by many backhanded flips not to be a nuisance as a busy woman worked.

“Himself is outside,” I warned her.

“The girl will look after him.”

“Not his type.”

“Oh I remember. You think you are! Remember, if you can get through the wedding, you can get through life … When’s the big day now?”

“Two days’ time.” I managed to say it without shuddering.

“Better get a move on then,” she commented frankly. She was a true grandmother. “If you really intend solving whose those old bones are.”

“Don’t nag, Gran. I’m not messing about. I will solve it. And I’ll discover who put them there. Listen, I only meant let’s pretend that gorgeous tripe you’re braising is some variety of pulse, shall we?”

The gran gave me a shirty look. She knew the rules; she knew how to get around them, too, but today she wasn’t going to give in quietly. “Now let me see. Pulses-what could that be? Beans? Kidney or broad, what’s your fancy? Black, white, green, red, speckled or stripey as a duck’s arse? I could do you peas, chickpeas, lentils, millet, barley, oats, vetch or lupins? No, I’m not inflicting lupins on anyone. That’s donkey food. Seeds? Nuts? Walnuts, pine kernels, almonds…?”

“Cobnuts. Enough!” I cried. “Bloody hell, Gran. That’s a market wholesaler’s catalog.”

She sniffed. There must be special lessons in being offended yet triumphant, lessons you can have when you are seventy-five and stroppy with it.

“What is it really?”

“What is what?”

I knew that game. “You know. The tripe?”

“Liver.”

“Yum.”

“Everyone likes a bit of comfort food. I never use a recipe, I just put onions and a bit of pearl barley into everything. Sometimes I do liver, sometimes kidney. I like to put a pastry lid on kidneys. I don’t enjoy cooking all the kinds of offal. Udders, stomachs-you can keep those. I feel funny if I have to handle brains.” After this speech, she continued rapidly chopping shallots. Her knife was an old, heavy, wide, wooden-handled one. Luckily I knew Gavius was hurt with a slim blade or I would have wondered whether the attack on him was a family affair.

“I’m drooling. I can wait a bit. Liver will just need a fast flash in the pan … I can’t keep calling you Gran. What’s your real name?”

“Everyone calls me Gran. What makes you so special, young woman?” I wanted to keep talking like this, to be nostalgic. What with the wedding, I must be missing my own grandmothers. She may have sensed my sadness, for she softened, as they do. “It’s Prisca.”

“Thank you. I appreciate the honor.”

I gazed at her. She paused in her vigorous chopping. We understood each other. She realized I had something to tell her.

“Prisca, I am very sorry, I have something bad to say.”

She laid down the knife gently, wiping her hands on her skirts. These were small, formal preparations so she was decently ready. “Who died?” At her age, there was only one sorry message that solemn people brought to you.

Awkwardly deferring the moment, I asked slowly, “Did you see Gavius here last night?”

“Who’s gone for our Gavius? Is it him then?” She was upset, though perhaps not entirely surprised, I thought. “What happened?”

“Did you see him when he came over?” She had seen him when he first realized Rhodina had been killed. I had to treat her as a significant witness, press her for her story before she knew what had happened to him.

“I might have been in here, just taking a tot for my arthritis. No harm in that.”

“Little warming drink. Helps you sleep despite the pain. At your time of life, you deserve it, Prisca.” I had been properly instructed in senior people’s rights. “So, tell me. When he came across from the Hesperides, all upset, did he say anything to you? His old grandma?”

“Of course. He’s a big enough lump now, but I used to wipe his little pink arse. He can’t keep much from me.”

“The story about Rhodina, the one-time barmaid? The one the men all hankered after?”

“Yes. I got that out of him.”

“Tell me exactly what he said, Gran. This is important. He talked to his mate, his backup in the business, Appius-”

“I know Appius. Get a move on. What’s happened to my Gavius?” She had not forgotten my threat of bad news.

“You guessed, Gran. I am sorry to be the one who has to tell you.”

“Albia, stop messing with me.”

Obediently I told her. “He was attacked. Someone went to his house last evening. He let them in. They stabbed him in the neck. We found him lying on the floor a little while ago.”

“He’s dead?”

It was no good. I had to ease Prisca’s misery. If it was bad enough for parents to lose children in their lifetime, how was it for a grandparent? Prisca spoke of Gavius as a favorite. So I told her he was in great danger but we needed to pretend he was actually dead.

“I’ll have to go and see him.”

“No, Gran. His parents will look after him. This is for his safety while they try to save him. Just make sure everyone knows you’re heartbroken.”

She was silent, resisting me, then she burst out instead: “Were those dogs with him?”

“Going crazy.”

“Who’s got his dogs? All he would care about would be the dogs.”

“His parents have all three, at least temporarily. I suspect Appius will help sort something out. The men are all devastated … I’m doing what I can to discover who attacked him. So now can you tell me, please, what Gavius said to you.”

She set about it, an efficient storyteller. It was identical to what Appius had said, though flavored with sneers about her grandson’s foolish fancy for Rhodina. “I forgot all about her years ago, but when he said it, I remembered. I didn’t think much of her. Flirty, bosomy little piece. I can tell he really wanted her-and he never bothered with anyone afterward. I thought our boy had a lucky escape there. You want to know about the barmaid? If you ask me, that one was only interested in finding some man soft enough to be conned into bringing up her children. That Rhodina. She was one of those types, you know-a man only had to wink at her and she fell pregnant. Of course that wasn’t her fault. Some women just can’t help conceiving.”

“She could have kept to herself.”

“Oh, she worked in a bar, Albia! No hope of keeping her legs crossed. She would have lost her job.”

“She bore two little tots, apparently.”

“And some.”

“There were more?”

“I’m sure.”

“So she wasn’t young?”

“She started young.”

“They all do. Be fair-they have to, Gran. Whether it’s their own sad choice or they are slaves and shoveled into it. Did the other babies die naturally, or did she get rid of them? Did Rufia help her sort herself out?”

“I wouldn’t know. I never did anything like that, and none of my daughters neither. Well,” said Prisca, being realistic. “As far as they ever told me.”

I was still thinking about the barmaid’s little ones. “If it wasn’t Rhodina who picked up the two children that night, can you suggest anyone else?”

Prisca shrugged. “Someone who wanted a ready-made family? Must have been someone who knew that Thales or someone had polished off that Rhodina and buried her. Then, since we live in a cruel world, most likely they thought they could make some money selling the brats to a slaver. I expect they were horrible, snively little things.” She implied “not like my grandchildren.” It was probably true, since her descendants would be chubby and contented on kidneys in a pastry lid, oozing with gravy …

“I don’t suppose their lives were very happy,” I said. “Weren’t they very small? Yet old enough to be left with a minder. If they are still alive, they must be coming up to adulthood; they will remember nothing of their mother or her history.”

“So you can’t expect to find them?” Until that moment I had not intended even to look. Damn. As an informer I was always picking up this kind of responsibility.

“Only if I can learn who took them. It’s a very small chance.” Almost not worth bothering, Albia. Leave it alone!

“It’s not their fault, the life they were born into. If anyone had known, people would have tried to do something for them, I expect. Our Gavius would have looked after them, he was silly enough. Put them down to sleep on a dog blanket. Added two bowls to the row…” She was sniffing now, buffing at her eyes irritably with the back of her wrist.

“I know. Your grandson is a good one.”

“The best.” She started crying properly. On principle she blamed the onions, but I was allowed to acknowledge what had really caused her tears.

I had to sit with her while she grieved over the danger her grandson was in. She refused fuss, so I stayed there very quietly.

It struck me nothing is as simple as it looks. I could easily dismiss the Ten Traders and White Chickens as filthy enclaves of vice: all drink, prostitution, extortion and slave-trading, alien to respectable people like me and Tiberius. Yet he and I had both done things we would never talk about at dinner parties.

And here, despite the rawness, it was still possible to expose pockets of normal family life. Some people had skills, held down regular jobs in the community at large. Walk in here, past the peculiar-sexed doll with the livid eyeliner, and you found an ordinary grandmother cooking up a stew using age-old peasant ingredients, utensils and methods. Comfort food, tasty and gelatinous, always with pearl barley because that was her way of doing it. She saw the vice, yet somehow kept apart from it; in her world there was family love and even compassion for orphans of flirty flibbertigibbets.

I myself had once been fostered into that kind of environment. It could be harsh. There was no luxury. But it nurtured life, and where there was life there could eventually be chances.

Maybe, I thought, what happened at the Garden of the Hesperides had nothing to do with drink, prostitution, extortion or slave-trading. Those things only provided a background. It was about domestic emotions, not trade.

Mind you, if so, it had been carried out and concealed rather professionally.

I was on the verge of leaving. I could no longer bear the strain of this fond grandmother’s unhappiness for her Gavius. I wanted to trust her, but I probably should not have told her the truth; the point was for the villain or villains to see everyone reacting as if Gavius was genuinely gone. Still, Prisca’s tears were perfect. Besides, Gavius might yet die on us.

Just as I took my leave, his grandmother burst out with something: “You mentioned Rufia.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think she would have helped that other one. She hated her.”

I paused. “What happened? Jealous of Thales bunking up with Rhodina? Younger, prettier, bustier and more successful with the men?”

“I don’t know about jealous. But Rufia had always reckoned Rhodina meant trouble. She tried hard to persuade Old Thales to get rid of her. Stupid, really. You know men; that only helped make him notice her.”

“I know. If you want a man to do something, Gran, just tell him not to.”

“I never went to the Hesperides,” said Prisca. “We didn’t have much money so I used to put meals together for them all at home. When we had an outing we used to go to the big thermopolium on the Clivus Salutis where they do a lot of fish and they welcome family parties. So I can’t tell you all of it. But you hear things. There was a struggle going on there over something, that’s a certainty. And Rufia was always going to come out on top.”

So you had to wonder. Could the barmaid everyone always thought had been murdered, in fact be behind the other killings?