One Virgin Too Many

XX

"Helena Justina, a man who loves you ferociously is offering to jolt you for hours in a hot open cart, and then grope you in a cabbage field."

"How can I resist?"

"You can surely leave Gloccus and Cotta on their own for just a day."

Helena made no sign of hearing me mention the two names. "Do you need me?"

"I do. I have to manage a mule, and you know how I hate that; I shall also require your sensible presence to control Ma. Anyway, if I don't produce you, Great-Auntie Phoebe will assume you have left me."

"Oh, why would anyone think that?" Helena knew how to deny it in a way I found faintly worrying.

"By the way, sweetheart, Pa sent a message, in his devious style. He thinks you should know he has heard that Gloccus and Cotta are not all they were at the time he recommended them."

Helena finally turned around from a pot she had been scrubbing with grit and vinegar. Her eyes blazed. Through set teeth she hissed, "I really do not need anybody to tell me what Gloccus and Cotta are like. If I hear anyone else mention Gloccus and Cotta, I shall scream!"

It was from the heart. The picture at least had a chalk outline now. Pa had stuck her with a pair of his pet noodles; these boys had to be fixers in the building trade. I grinned and backed off.

It was now three days before the Nones of June, a festival of Bellona, Goddess of War: a deity to respect, naturally, but one with no direct poultry connections as far as I knew. Another voting day, so it was handy to flee from the Forum before anyone grabbed me for jury service.

We made good time out to my relatives' disorganized patch of vegetable fields, where as usual the leeks and artichokes were struggling on their own, while the uncles busied themselves with lives of fervent emotional complexity. They were men of huge passions-grafted onto absolutely mediocre personalities. I stayed long enough to hear that dopey Uncle Junius had finally broken his heart over his doomed affair with a neighbor's flirty wife, and-after a terrible scene bang in the middle of the cress harvest-having failed to hang himself from a broken beam in the ox-harness room (which Great-Auntie Phoebe had repeatedly told him to mend), he had left home in a new huff over the ill-timed reappearance during a violent thunderstorm of his brother, Fabius, who had previously gone off in a huff over, I think, a crisis about what he did in life (since what Fabius actually did was to cause trouble in the lives of other people and then hang around apologizing, his huff had been encouraged by everyone else). All much as usual. The two brothers had a lifelong feud, a feud so old neither of them could remember what it had been about, but they were comfortable loathing each other. I had not seen Fabius for years; he had failed to improve.

Ma took Julia from us and settled in to shake heads with Phoebe over the lads and their troubles. Nux came with me. Nux had become anxious and clinging after the episode on the Capitol where she was arrested by the priestly acolytes who were looking for doggies to crucify. In addition to that, a succession of nasty male curs had occupied our front porch recently, suggesting Nux was in heat; this too was making her behavior unstable. I was annoyed; acting as midwife for my own child had been enough of a disturbing experience, one I was not keen to resume for a bunch of pups.

Helena knew I was checking up on the Laelius family, so once we dropped off Ma, she came on with me.

A hot June morning, ambling along with a mule who was tired enough to do as I instructed, feeling Helena's knee against my own, and Helena's lightly clad shoulder nuzzling my arm. Only the wet nose of Nux, squeezing between us from the back of the cart, spoiled what could have been an idyll.

"Well, here we are peacefully traveling together," mused my beloved. "Your chance to lull me into telling what my secret is."

"Would not dream of it."

"I expect you to try."

"If you need to share your troubles, you'll come out and say so."

"What if I really want you to squeeze the story out of me?"

"Child's stuff. You are far too serious," I proclaimed piously. "I love you because you and I never have to descend to such games."

"Didius Falco, you are an aggravating swine."

I smiled at her fondly. Whatever she was doing, I trusted her. For one thing, if she really wanted to deceive me, there was no way I would ever have noticed that anything was happening; Helena Justina was too clever for me.

I had my work. It tended to be a solitary occupation. She helped when it seemed appropriate-and sometimes when it was so dangerous I felt terrified that she was involved-but she deserved stimulus of her own. Even when our lives were separate, I would always seize any chance to extract her and take her apart so that we could lose ourselves…

Part of our early courtship had taken place in the countryside. It seemed a nostalgic treat to roll around with her while hard lumps of vegetation were sticking in our backs. Still, nostalgia is a dish for the young.

"Ow! Jupiter, let's just concede that we have a bed at home. Fun's fun-but we're grown up now."

Helena Justina looked at me tenderly. "Didius Falco, you will never be grown up!"

Nux, tied up to the cart, started to howl.

Anyway, it was later than it might have been when we found the farm. It was a neat smallholding that looked well run, though barely capable of supporting more than the people who were living there. They had rows of summer salad crops, occasional poultry pottering about in a soft fruit orchard, a couple of cows, and a large friendly pig. Two geese wandered out to greet us; I could have done without them.

The farm dogs sniffed out the presence of Nux within minutes. Tying her up would only have made her a sacrificial victim. I tied them up instead. Then I carried Nux, preserving her canine chastity however fiercely she tried to squirm. Helena said it would be good practice for when our daughter grew up.

This smallholding seemed designed as a Roman intellectual's retirement home, after the patronage ran out; from here he could write bucolic notes to his friends in town, praising the simple life where his table was set with just runny cheese and a lettuce leaf (while hoping some civilized visitor would bring him gossip, memories of sophisticated women, and a decent flask of wine). However, if Laelius Scaurus was, as I supposed, in his thirties, it seemed early for him to be giving up on city life.

We found a bent-backed aged retainer who pushed a hoe about. He looked happy to see us, but we got no sense out of him. All my prejudice against the country was rising fast. First my peculiar uncles, and now a rural slave who left his brains behind on a shelf when he went out of doors. Then things looked up. A girl appeared.

"Well!" I grinned at Helena. "I can manage on my own now if you want to go and rest in the mule cart."

"Forget it!" she growled.

The smallholding girl had a round face, with a big mouth, and swiftly emerging dimples. Her smile was willing; her figure fulsome; her nature friendly and open. Her eyes were dark and promising and her hair was tied up with blue ribbon. She wore a loose natural-cream gown that had a few unraveled sections in the seams through which her burnished skin was clearly visible. Wherever could Scaurus have found her, leading his austere life as a flamen's son?

"He has gone to Rome."

"Can't be parted from the Forum?" I asked.

"Oh, he goes to and fro. Last time he sneaked a visit to his sister. This time he had a letter from his wife." At least she knew about the wife. I would not have liked to think this shining young lady was the victim of cruel deception. "He could have gone yesterday, but he held back because it was a legal day, and he was afraid they might make him sign something."

"Like what?" I smiled. Her friendliness was extremely infectious.

"Oh, I don't know."

"And you are?" enquired Helena, rather sternly.

"I am Meldina." Very nice. I managed to hold back the comment that she had a pretty name. It always sounds like a trite old pickup line, however genuinely meant. I was in a difficult enough situation, trying to hold on to a skillfully wriggling dog who had hopes of a country romance.

From then on, I let Helena take on the questioning while I just controlled Nux and watched admiringly. (I mean-of course-only that I was admiring the skill of my dear girl's questioning.) "How long has Laelius Scaurus lived out here?"

"About three years."

"As long as that! And have you lived here all the time?"

"Mostly." Meldina gave us an especially big smile. "It's very nice out here."

We all looked around. It was a picture of country perfection. If you were talking in terms of perspective, the foreground was particularly fine, due to the presence in it of Meldina's large-scale charms.

"Let me guess," Helena said gently, in a tone that was unlikely to give offense. "You would have been a Laelius family freedwoman?"

"Oh no!" Meldina sounded horrified. "I had nothing to do with that lot. My mother was a freedwoman of his aunt's," she corrected. This rather complicated definition implied that there had been no pressure on her to move here with Scaurus; freeborn herself, she had come of her own choice. Nonetheless, I wondered whether the aunt had encouraged her; such an attractive girl might have been too much of a favorite with Auntie's husband, maybe.

"Did you know Scaurus before he moved out to the country?" Helena was seeking to discover whether it was his friendship with Meldina that had caused Scaurus' estrangement from his wife.

"No, afterwards. Still," said the smiling girl (who never really stopped smiling), "we are pretty settled now."

"No chance of him divorcing his wife, presumably?"

"Never. His father has forbidden it." As we thought.

"Excuse me asking all these questions," Helena said.

"Oh, that's all right. I'll talk to anyone." What a refreshing attitude. I wondered how far Meldina's accessibility went. It seemed unlikely that she stinted much. Helena was giving me a stern look, for some reason. "What did you want to see Scaurus about?" Meldina asked, also throwing a look my way. I was a man of the world; I could handle that. On the other hand, I might not be able to handle Helena after this incident.

"We wanted a word about his young daughter-little Gaia. We had an encounter with her that left us feeling concerned."

"Funny little tot," said Meldina, with a delicious frown. "I've met her a few times. His aunt brings her out here to see him."

The aunt had featured sufficiently for Helena now to fix on her. "When you say his aunt, that wouldn't be Terentia Paulla, I suppose?" I was surprised by this, until reminded of a conversation at Helena's parents' house about this woman; she had been the sister of the late Flaminica: "My grandmother knew her from the Bona Dea Festival," Helena explained. "Terentia is a Vestal Virgin, isn't she?"

"That's the right aunt. But she's not a Virgin anymore!" Meldina was giggling. "Didn't you know? She retired at the end of her thirty years-then upset everyone by marrying!"

Retired Vestal Virgins could do that, in theory. It rarely happened since it was thought unlucky for a man to marry an ex-Virgin. Since she would probably be past childbearing age, a bridegroom would have to place a higher than usual premium on virginity to think it worthwhile. Any quick thrill from bedding a Vestal would be outweighed by then gaining a tyrant who came with thirty years' experience of ruling the roost.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Helena, with spirit. "Grandmother never told me that!"

"You are shielded from anything scandalous," I intervened.

"Oh, he can speak!" trilled Meldina.

"Far too much," said Helena, sneering. "I only bring him out with me to carry the lapdog. Well, retired Vestals are allowed to take husbands, but people do always look askance… I cannot say Grandmama liked Terentia much," she tried.

"Oh, didn't she?" The girl continued to look bright and helpful, though she was definitely deflecting the question this time. She was being loyal. To whom? I wondered.

Helena let it go and changed her approach. "Meldina, did you know there is a plan for young Gaia Laelia to follow Terentia and become a Vestal too?"

"Yes, Scaurus said his wife came up with that."

"He has given his consent?"

"I suppose so."

"I just wondered if that was why he went to Rome today?"

"Oh no. His aunt wants him. He said it was to help with her affairs."

Helena paused. "I'm sorry; I must have misunderstood something. I thought you said Laelius Scaurus went to Rome after receiving a letter from his wife, not his aunt?"

Meldina's smile became broader than ever. "Well, that's his lot all over, isn't it? His auntie wants him, but his wife wrote and told him that his father had decided Scaurus was not to know anything about it." She grinned. "Scaurus has gone to Rome to kick up a right stink!"