One Virgin Too Many

XXXII

It took a while for me to be admitted to see Caecilia Paeta. I used the time to familiarize myself with the house plan; I marked off the room where I had seen the ex-Flamen, then covered two more while I waited. They were medium-sized reception rooms, very lightly furnished and probably not used. Given that the family had been here nearly a year, I was surprised how little progress they seemed to have made in settling in. Did they lack practical application, or had there been a reluctance to face the fact that they were staying?

The Flaminia, their official residence on the Palatine, would have been officially furnished. I had already noticed that what they owned here was old and of good quality-family pieces, probably-yet there was not much of it. Like many an elite family, these people appeared to have money, but less ready cash than they needed. Either that, or when they needed to reequip they had been too caught up in their wrangles to find time to go shopping.

The reception room I was called to next was typical: too much bare space and no style. Caecilia Paeta was much as I remembered from her visit to Maia's house, though she looked more drawn. Several frightened maids had flocked to protect her from the immodesty of being interviewed by an informer. She sat hunched in a single basket-weave chair, pulling a light stole too tightly around her shoulders, while they squatted on stools or cushions in a circle around her and stared at the floor.

Once again, I kept my voice quiet and my manner calm, though not subservient. I would have to know much more about the situation here before I started throwing my weight about. But I could already feel the tension knotted around this household. In the mother's silence as she faced me, I could sense the years of oppression that had crushed any spirit out of her.

What kind of life did she face? Abandoned by her husband who, if Numentinus had his way, would never be allowed to divorce her, she was denied the normal right to rejoin her own family and start afresh. Her father-in-law had probably thought little of her to begin with; bullies loathe their victims. When she failed to hold his son, it would seem logical to the tyrant to despise Caecilia more. Now she had lost her child.

"Don't give up hope." I had not meant to be kind to her. She had not expected it, either. We shared a moment of uncomfortable surprise. "Look, we won't waste time. I need to know everything that happened yesterday, up until it was noticed that Gaia was missing. I want you to describe the day."

Caecilia looked nervous. When she spoke, it was in so quiet a voice I had to lean right forward to hear her. "We all rose as usual, which was not long after dawn." I could have guessed that. When your home is full of trouble, why waste good arguing time? "The Flamen makes offerings to the gods before breakfast."

"You eat together as a family? Who was present then?"

"All of us. The Flamen, me and Gaia, Laelia and Ariminius…" She paused, uncertainly.

"Ariminius is the Flamen Pomonalis, and Laelia is his wife? Your husband's sister? Anyone else there?" I asked, looking down at my tablet. I had thought I sensed something. Caecilia was so shortsighted, she could probably not see my expression, but tone of voice carries. Besides, the maids were watching, and if I looked too keen on a particular question, their anxiety might communicate itself to her.

"Nobody." I was sure she had hesitated.

"After breakfast you went your separate ways?"

"Laelia was in her room, I think. I had my household tasks." So the daughter-in-law was their drudge while the daughter took her ease? "Ariminius went out." Lucky man.

"What about Gaia? Does she go to school?"

"Oh no." Silly me.

"She has a tutor?"

"No. I have taught her the alphabet myself; she can read and write. Everything children in this household need to know, they learn at home."

The priestly caste may be top-notch on peculiar ritual; they are not famous for being erudite.

"So, please tell me about Gaia's day."

"She sat quietly with the maids to begin with, helping them with their weaving at the loom." I should have known that as well as believing in self-education, these were home-weaving cranks. Well, a Flamen Dialis has to insist that his Flaminica work her fingers sore preparing his ceremonial robes. I amused myself wondering about Helena's reaction, if I had come home with my new honor and suggested that a Procurator of Poultry ought to swank about in wife-sewn livery. "After a while," continued Caecilia, now speaking with more confidence, "she was allowed to go into a safe inner garden and play."

"When did you hear she was missing?"

"After lunch. That is an informal meal here, but of course I expected to see her. When Gaia did not appear, I accepted a story her nurse told, that Gaia had taken her food to eat by herself. She does that sometimes, sitting on a bench in the sun, or making herself a little picnic still involved in play…" She suddenly looked at me sharply. "I expect you think us a strange, strict family-but Gaia is allowed to be a child, Falco! She plays. She owns plenty of toys." Not many friends to share them with, I guessed.

"I shall have to search her room shortly."

"You will find that she lived in a dear little nursery, quite spoiled."

"So she had no obvious reason to want to run away from home?" I demanded, without warning. Caecilia clammed up. "No horrid new family crises?" I noticed a few restless movements among the waiting maids. They kept their eyes cast down. They had been well drilled, probably while I was kept hanging about before this interview.

"Gaia has always been a happy child. A sweet baby and a happy child." The mother had retreated into a talismanic chant. Still, at least she was now showing some natural misery. "What has happened to her? Will I ever see her again?"

"I am trying to find the answer. Please trust me."

She was still agitated. I had no hopes of getting anywhere while she was surrounded by her female bodyguards. The maids were as much protecting me from the truth as protecting the lady from me. I pretended I had finished, then asked if Caecilia would now show me the child's room, saying I would like her to do this herself in case, under my guidance, she could spot anything different from normal that would act as a clue. She agreed to come without the maids. The slave who was supposed to escort me scuttled along behind us, but he was a loon and hardly ever kept up. He was already carrying the house plan for me, and I added my toga to burden him more.

Caecilia walked me along several corridors. Cooling down abruptly in just my tunic, I hooked my thumbs in my belt. I gave her time to relax too, then returned to the questions she had avoided and asked gently, "Something was wrong, wasn't it?"

She took a deep breath. "There had been bad feeling, for various reasons, and Gaia has always been sensitive. Like any child, she assumed that all problems were her fault."

"Were they?"

She jumped. "How could they be?"

I said callously, "I have no idea-since I don't know what these problems were!" She was determined not to tell me. Orders from the Flamen, no doubt. We paced along in silence for a while, then I pressed it: "Was the trouble to do with your husband's aunt?"

Caecilia glanced at me sideways. "You know about that?" She looked amazed. Too amazed. At the same moment we both realized we were somehow at cross-purposes. I made a mental note of the subject.

I said, "Terentia Paulla sounds a force to be reckoned with." She laughed, rather bitterly. "Be frank. What's this aunt really playing at?"

Caecilia shook her head. "It is all a disaster. Please don't ask any more. Just find Gaia. Please."

We had reached the child's room.

It was of modest size, though the mother had correctly implied that the child hardly lived in a cell. Anyway, there was only so much space, so Caecilia ordered the slave that Numentinus had imposed on me to wait outside. The man did not like it, yet he took her instructions as though overruling the Flamen was not unknown.

I absorbed the scene. There was more jumble here than I had found anywhere previously. I had seen Gaia dressed in her finery; there was an open chest full of similarly dainty clothes: gowns and undergowns, small fancy-strapped sandals, colored girdles and stoles, tot-sized cloaks. A tangle of beads and bracelets-not cheap fakes, but real silver and semiprecious hardstones-occupied a tray on a side table. A sunhat hung on a hook on the door.

For her amusement, Gaia possessed many a toy that my Julia would be happy to bang around the floor: dolls, wooden, ceramic and rag; feather- and bean-stuffed balls; a hoop; toy horses and carts; a miniature farm. They were all good quality, the work of craftsmen, not the whittled stumpy things that youngsters in my family had to make do with. The dolls had been sat in a line on a shelf. The toy farm was spread over the floor, however, with its animals arranged as if the child had just left the room temporarily while playing with them.

Looking down at the model farm that had been so meticulously displayed by her small daughter, Caecilia Paeta caught her breath, though she tried to conceal it. She folded her arms tight, gripping her body as if resolutely holding back her emotion.

I had stopped her on the threshold. "Now, look around carefully. Is everything the way Gaia normally has it? Anything odd? Anything out of place?"

She looked, quite carefully, then rapidly shook her head. In the sea of treasures Gaia had owned, it would be difficult to spot disturbance. I entered the room and started a search.

The furnishings were less lavish than the child's personal possessions, and may even have come with the house. The oil lamps, rugs, and cushions were minimal. There was a narrow child-sized bed in a specially designed alcove, covered with a checkered spread, and several cupboards, mainly built in. I looked in the bed and under it, then in the cupboards, where I found a few more toys and shoes and an unused chamberpot. A large wooden box, of fairly standard type and quality, contained a mirror, combs, pins, manicure tools on a big silver ring, and tangled lengths of hair ribbon.

Holding a solitary small ankle boot that I had found under the bed, I asked, "Who buys all the toys?"

"Relatives." Caecilia Paeta crossed the room and obsessively neatened the coverlet on the bed. She looked near to tears.

"Anyone special?"

"Everyone buys her things." She gestured around, acknowledging that Gaia had had luxury lavished upon her. I could understand it: the only child in a moneyed family and, as I had seen, cute with it.

"You moved here when the Flaminica died. Does Gaia miss her grandmother?"

"A little. Statilia Paulla was fonder of my husband than anyone. She spoiled him, I'm afraid."

"Even after he left home?"

Caecilia lowered her voice nervously. "Please don't talk about him. His name is never mentioned now."

"People do abscond," I commented. Caecilia made no reply. "How did Statilia Paulla react to the fact that her own sister Terentia had encouraged Scaurus to go, and had facilitated the move?"

"How do you think? It caused more trouble." I could have guessed that.

I sighed. "Does Gaia miss her father?"

"She sees him from time to time. As much as many children would."

"If their parents were divorced, you mean? What about you? Do you miss him?"

"I have no choice." She did not sound too upset.

"Had you any choice over marrying him in the first place?"

"I was content. Our families had old connections. He is a decent man."

"But I take it you two were not passionately in love?"

Caecilia smiled faintly. It was not an affront, yet she appeared to regard the suggestion of passion as some odd quirk. Privately, I thanked the gods not all patrician girls had that upbringing. At least Caecilia did not seem to know what she was missing.

Plenty of Roman women of "good" family are bedded by men they hardly know. Most bear them children, since that is the point of it. Some are then left to their own devices. Many welcome the freedom. They need not feign deep affection for their husbands; they can avoid the men almost totally. They acquire status without emotional responsibility. So long as acceptable financial arrangements are made, all that is demanded of them is that they refrain from taking lovers. Any rate, they should not flaunt their lovers openly.

I did not believe Caecilia Paeta had a lover. But how can you tell?

Still pressing to find Gaia, I tried a different tack: "Does your husband's aunt, Terentia Paulla, have much to do with Gaia?"

Caecilia's expression became veiled again. I wondered if the subject might be even more tricky than I had already realized. "Only since she retired from being a Vestal, of course. That was about a year and a half ago. She is very fond of Gaia." It reinforced my impression that Gaia Laelia had been used in the family's endless emotional tugs of war.

"Yet she disapproves of Gaia becoming a Vestal?"

For once, Caecilia showed some natural acidity. "Maybe she wants all the honor for herself!"

"Have you told her that Gaia had gone missing?" Caecilia looked uneasy. I was crisp. "If Gaia felt close to her and has run away, she may turn up at Terentia's house."

"Oh, we would be told!"

"Where does Terentia live?"

"Her husband's house is twenty miles outside Rome." Too far for a child to make the journey alone easily-though runaways have been known to cover astonishing distances. "I shall need an address."

Caecilia seemed flustered. "There's no need for this-Gaia knew very well that Terentia is away from home at present."

"Why? Is she in Rome?"

"She comes sometimes."

I could not see why Caecilia was stalling. "Look, I'm just considering people Gaia might run to."

She still looked distressed. She had picked up a model bull from Gaia's farm and was twisting it in her fingers obsessively. I knew she must be lying about something, but I let her think I had swallowed it. "Have you informed your husband that Gaia is gone?"

"I am not allowed to contact him."

"Oh, come! Not only is this rather important-but I do know you wrote to him only this week saying his aunt wished to see him." Caecilia's head spun towards me. "I have met your husband. He told me himself."

"What did he say to you?" Caecilia gasped, rather too carefully. Was she afraid he might have criticized her conduct in their marriage?

"Nothing to alarm you. We talked mostly about a guardianship issue."

She seemed horrified. "I cannot discuss that."

Since I thought the ridiculous tale Scaurus spun me was all nonsense, I felt startled. Was there another guardianship issue, not involving the ex-Vestal? I started getting tough. "Laelius Scaurus came up to town this week to see his aunt and other members of the family. Now what's the truth about this?"

Caecilia shook her head extremely vigorously. "It was just a family conference."

"Something to do with Gaia?"

"Nothing to do with her."

"Is Terentia Paulla causing trouble?"

"In fairness to her, no."

"So what's the problem?"

"Nothing." She was lying again. Why?

"Did this 'nothing' make Gaia upset, do you think?"

"It was just something that had to be arranged, a legal matter," said the mother, sighing. "Terentia wanted my husband to be consulted; his father thought Scaurus should not be involved."

"What do you think?"

"Scaurus was useless!" she complained, quite violently. "He always is." For a moment she sounded worn out by trying to cope. I could now understand why she might have accepted Scaurus' departure from Rome with some relief. After this brief glimpse of her frustration with him, she made an attempt to deflect me by saying, "Many of Gaia's things here were presents from Aunt Terentia and Uncle Tiberius."

I went with it. "Uncle Tiberius? He would have been Terentia Paulla's husband? The one who died? Was that very recently?"

Another troubled look crossed Caecilia's pale face. "Quite recent, yes."

"That was why you needed the family conference, was it?"

I seemed to have caught her off guard. "Well, yes. It arose from his death."

"When my sister first came here to call on you, most of the family were at a funeral-were you cremating Terentia's husband?" Caecilia's face confirmed it, though she looked hunted; perhaps she was remembering how angry the ex-Flamen had been about Maia visiting. "Excuse me asking, but is it not unusual for a retired Vestal to marry?"

"Yes."

"That's a bit terse! Was it another cause of conflict here?"

"Oh yes," answered Caecilia, with a sudden release of emotion. "Yes, Falco. It caused more conflict than you can ever realize!"

I waited for an explanation, but the drama had been enough for her. She wore a trace of defiance, as though she were glad she had spoken out-yet now she buttoned up. I thought of something that could explain a few things: "When Vestals retire, they are often awarded large dowries by the Emperor, are they not?"

With her composure restored, Caecilia agreed quietly. "Yes, Aunt Terentia was well endowed financially. But that was not the attraction for Uncle Tiberius. He was a very wealthy man himself."

"So what was the attraction?" I ventured. Wrong move, Falco! Caecilia looked offended, and I backed off smartly. "Now he's dead, does Terentia inherit?"

"Probably. I don't think she has even considered it. She has been far too taken up with other concerns."

"Everything I hear about Terentia suggests she will have her financial situation well in hand… What concerns?"

"Just family business… What has this to do with finding Gaia, please?"

Caecilia was more intelligent than first impressions implied. She was learning how to dodge the questions. I could handle that. Noting which ones she ducked could prove useful.

An unplanned question came to me helpfully: "Did you like Uncle Tiberius?"

"No." It was swift and decisive.

I stared at her. "Why was that?" I used a neutral tone first. Then, when she did not answer, I asked more dryly, "Did he jump you?"

"He made advances, yes." Her voice was tight. This was an unexpected development.

"Advances you rebuffed?"

"Of course I did!" She was angry now.

"Was this after he married?"

"Yes. He had been married to Aunt Terentia little more than a year. He was a loathsome man. He thought every woman was at his disposal-and unfortunately, he had the knack of persuading too many to believe it."

When she fell silent, I saw she was trembling slightly. My thoughts were racing. Was the deceased just a regular sex pest fingering married women-or was he even worse? "Caecilia Paeta, please don't distress yourself. I have to ask you a very unpleasant question. If that was the situation-is there any possibility the ghastly Tiberius ever tried to make advances to little Gaia?"

Caecilia took a long time answering, though she received the question more calmly than I had feared. She was a mother, fluttery in some ways, but she did not flinch from protecting her child. "I was nervous about that. I did consider it. But no," she said slowly. "I know it happens, especially with young slaves. But when I thought about it, I was sure Uncle Tiberius had no interest in children." She paused, then forced out with difficulty, "I was afraid, in my heart, that it might become awkward later, when Gaia grew up-but he is dead, so there is no need to worry any longer, is there?" she concluded with relief.

"So Gaia certainly has not had to run away because of Uncle Tiberius?"

"No. She knows he is dead, of course. Falco, is that all you want from me?"

I reckoned I had tried her far enough. I had made more progress than I had expected, even if I did not yet understand the full significance of some of her answers. I felt the conversation had been especially harrowing for Caecilia. She must be under great pressure from Numentinus to keep family issues from me. We had been skirting more secrets than the old man would like.

"Yes, thank you. May I make a suggestion: Scaurus deserves to hear about Gaia. Send word to him today. And regarding Uncle Tiberius groping you, don't carry that alone either. Tell someone."

She allowed herself to look grateful. As she fled the room, she gasped out, "That's all right. I did."

She was gone before I could ask her who her confidant was.