One Virgin Too Many

XXXV

Twenty or so sparrows took off as we emerged. It suggested a lack of human presence previously.

We were in an interior peristyle, with slender columns on four sides forming shady colonnades; water canals added to the cool effect. I now knew from the plan that, by chance, I had first entered the house by a lesser door, one of three approaches (two doors and a short staircase) on different streets of the block. As I would expect in a house of this quality, used by people who thought they were superior, the property occupied its own insula.

The main entrance was out of action currently, due to the building work. The hod-carriers were not remodeling it, but had used the small rooms either side of the door as stores for their tools and materials, spilling over into the corridor, which they had completely blocked with spare ladders and trestles. I was amazed Numentinus stood for it; it just showed that the power of the construction industry eclipses anything organized religion has ever managed to devise. He had once been Jupiter's representative, but now a few cheap laborers could run rings around him, quite unafraid of his verbal thunderbolts.

Had the main entrance been in use, there would have been a fine view from the door, right through the atrium, to a glimpse of this garden's greenery-letting callers know what excellent taste and what an excellent amount of money (or what huge debts), the occupants possessed.

The peristyle had a formal layout. The surrounding columns were gray stone, carved with fine spiral decorations. The space within contained box trees clipped into obelisks and empty statue bases, which I was told were awaiting family busts. A central circular hedge surrounded a pool, drained so it showed the blue lining, in the center of which reclined a metal ocean god with shaggy seaweed hair, forming a fountain, silent because of the drained works. Not much scope for a would-be Vestal Virgin to play in this drained basin.

"Where are the builders?" I asked Athene. "They don't seem keen to finish. Have you got Gloccus and Cotta in?"

"Who? They were told to go today, because you were coming."

"That was stupid. They could have helped me search. Builders like an excuse to do something that is not in their contract. Were they here yesterday morning?"

"Yes."

"Did anybody think to ask them if they saw anything?"

"The Pomonalis did." So somebody had shown initiative. He would be next on my list for interview.

"Did they say anything?"

"No," returned the nurse, looking slightly shifty, I thought. Dear gods, she probably eyed up the laborers.

I walked out into the garden. There were signs it had been neglected but recently revived with emergency treatment. The clipped trees were bare in places, where they had been shaved too hard after growing lanky. I saw evidence that paths had been repaired. A low pierced wall had patches of new concrete and marks where ivy had been torn off it. I remembered that a Flamen Dialis is forbidden to see ivy. Foolish old man; he could have enjoyed it winding through his latticework and statuary now. Still, it had damaged the stonework, so perhaps the prohibition had some sense.

A gardener who cared had bothered to plant flowers. Gillyflowers and verbena scented the air. Statuesque acanthus and laurel made more formal contributions. Newly planted pots of ferns and violets were dotted about, dripping.

"Where does your water come from?" The nurse looked vague. Having no time to mess about, I worked it out for myself. "Off the roof into the long containers…" In summer that would not produce enough. I poked around the pool and fountain. I found a lead pipe, leading to a raised cistern: crude. Though the trickling sound produced would be pleasant, it would provide a very weak head in the fountain, and the cistern would need refilling constantly. It was currently empty; I hauled myself up a wall to inspect the contents and glimpsed the bottom before I lost my handhold and landed in a heap. Refills must be tipped in from off a ladder. "How do they bring water here?"

"In buckets out of the kitchen." I looked up the route on the chart. A narrow dogleg corridor led from one corner to the service area. That must drive the kitchen staff mad (I could see why they became irritable when Gaia's pleas to fill her Vestal's play equipment were added to their annoyances). Replenishing the garden tank would also be a deadly job for the carriers. It looked to me as though the builders had been brought in to connect water to the pool in some direct way. Once they had emptied it, they stopped making progress. Typical.

"And how does water reach the house? What's your source of supply?"

The nurse had no idea, but the slave who was tailing me finally spoke up and told me the house was linked to an aqueduct. The Aqua Appia or Aqua Marcia, that would be.

"Parts of the house look very old. Anyone know how they obtained water before the aqueduct was built?"

The escort slave helped me out again: "The builders found an old well near the kitchen, but it had been filled in."

"Completely? Wells make me nervous-can you get to it?"

"No, it's quite safe-all solid to floor level."

"And is that the only one?" He shrugged. "Right. Now, yesterday-where would Gaia have been playing?"

"By the pool here."

It struck me that the dry basin did not make a very attractive alternative for the Spring of Egeria. Besides, the builders were supposed to have been here. Solitary little girls do not normally amuse themselves in imaginary games while muscular men in short tunics, with loud voices and raucous opinions, are moving to and fro with cement hods. Come to that, the louts do not enjoy constantly having to step around six-year-olds either.

The sparrows were back. They had discovered a large supply of crumbs. There was a smooth white bench with a marble table, both with sphinxes for legs, which it would be natural for workmen to take over for their regularly accessed lunch boxes. As I suspected: two used wineskins had been carefully hidden down against one of the bench legs because the lads could not be bothered to take their empties home with them. The sparrows hopped around in the dry pool, looking up at me as if asking where their drinking water and bath had gone.

"I really would not have thought a small girl would have been happy playing here."

The escort slave piped up again: "She goes over there." He led me to one of the colonnaded corridors. Against the house wall was a small shrine. Apparently, Gaia would pretend this was the Temple of the Vestals. She would sprinkle water about, tend an imaginary fire, and pretend to be making salt cakes. I found a bunch of sticks, painstakingly tied together with wool in the form of a mop, which Gaia must use for pretending to clean out the temple, in imitation of the Virgins' daily rites.

"Do they let her have ingredients for the pretend salt cakes?"

"No. The Flamen does not like it." Surprise!

I squatted down on my heels in front of the shrine. A lattice wall and a bank of oleander bushes hid me from most of the rest of the garden. Unless the nurse had stuck very close to her, Gaia could easily have stopped playing and sneaked off.

I heaved myself upright. Ignoring the two slaves, I set off to the nearest doorway out of the colonnade. I passed salons and anterooms bare of furniture. This was the least used part of the house. More what a child would like. Private. Unobserved. With that ever-attractive atmosphere of a place nobody was supposed to go into without permission. But there was no sign of Gaia.

I kept walking.

On the plan, three sides of this house had streets marked beside them. There were shops and lockups leased to artisans; I would check later that they were all quite separate, with no access from the house, though I was certain the ex-Flamen would have insisted upon it. The fourth side had nothing shown, though the house extended slightly in two small wings.

As I thought. There was a rectangular outdoor area between the wings. It was larger than it looked on the plan. "You could have told me there was another garden!"

"Gaia is not allowed to come here," protested the nurse sullenly.

"Are you sure she obeys?"

Work was being carried out here too. When the Laelii took over, this part must have been a wilderness. It was supposed to form a small potager with square beds where lines of vegetable and salad crops could be grown for the house. Untended for years, giant parsley and asparagus fern were running riot. Some patches of ground had been cleared; one was now cleanly dug over, others still had stumps of perennial weeds sticking up. The whole central area ought to be shaded by a complex series of pergolas, supporting old vines.

There a disaster greeted me. "Oh Jupiter, that's some hard pruning!"

The vines had been sliced right off a foot from the ground. Unbelievable. From the debris, I could see they had been until recently mature, healthy climbers, once well trained; new bunches had already formed among the bright green leaves. It was too late anyway to be cutting back vines, and the entire crop had now been lost. Mounds of limp vegetation were heaped everywhere. To me, with country ancestors, it was heartbreaking. I stepped out into the desecration, then could not bear to go on.

My mind was running on two different tracks. The Laelii would have to allocate slaves to help me here. All of this rubbish would have to be lifted, the mounds cleared right back to bare earth and the tangled branches forked over… But destroying those vines had been unforgivable.

"Did Numentinus order this?" Sensing my outrage, the slaves merely nodded. "Dear gods!"

"He cannot walk under vines."

"He can now! He stopped being the Flamen Dialis last year."

I forced myself to restrain my anger and returned temporarily to the house.