Three Hands in The Fountain

IX

The next time I ate dinner the surroundings were more luxurious, though the ambience was less comfortable: we were being formally entertained by Helena's parents.

The Camilli owned a pair of houses near the Capena Gate. They had all the amenities of the nearby busy area around the Via Appia, but were ensconced in a private insula off a back street where only the upper classes were welcome. I could never have lived there. The neighbours were all too nosy about everyone else's business. And someone was always having an aedile or a praetor to dinner, so people had to keep the pavements clean lest their highly superior enclave be officially criticised.

Helena and I had walked there over the Aventine. Her parents were bound to insist on sending us home in their beaten-up litter, with its just-about-adequate slave bearers, so we enjoyed a stroll through the early evening stir of suburban Rome. I was carrying the baby. Helena had volunteered to lug the large basket of Julia's impedimenta: rattles, spare loincloths, clean tunics, sponges, towels, flasks of rosewater, blankets and the rag doll she liked to try to eat.

As we came under the Porta Capena, which carries the Appian and Marcian aqueducts, we were splashed by the famous water leaks. The August evening was so warm we were dry again by the time we arrived at the Camillus house and I worked up a temper rousing the porter from his game of dice. He was a dope with no future, a lanky lout with a flat head who made it his life's work to annoy me. The daughter of the house was mine now. It was time to give up, but he was too dumb to have noticed.

The whole family had assembled for the ceremonial meeting with our new daughter. Considering the household boasted two sons in their early twenties, this was quite a coup. Aelianus and Justinus were ignoring the call of theatres and the races, dancers and musicians, poetry parties and dinners with drunken friends in order to greet their firstborn niece. It made me wonder what threats to their allowances must have been issued.

We handed over Julia to be admired, then beat a retreat to the garden.

'You two look exhausted!' Decimus Camillus, Helena's father, had sneaked out to join us. Tall, slightly stooped, and with short, straight, upstanding hair, he had his problems. He was a friend of the Emperor, but still laboured under the shadow of a brother who had tried to hijack the currency and disrupt the state; Decimus could not expect to be awarded any senior post. His coffers were light too. In August a senatorial family ought to be sunning themselves at some elegant villa on the spa coast at Neapolis or on the slopes of a quiet lake; the Camilli owned farms inland, but no proper summer haven. They passed the million sesterces qualification for the Curia, yet their cash in hand was insufficient to build on, either financially or socially.

He had found us sitting side by side on a bench in a colonnade, heads together and motionless, in a state of collapse.

'Having a baby's hard work,' I grinned. 'Were you allowed a glimpse of our treasure before she was mobbed by cooing women?'

'She seems skilled at handling an audience.'

'She is,' confirmed Helena, finding the energy to kiss her papa as he squashed informally on to our seat. 'Then when the flatterers finish, she's good at being sick on them.'

'Sounds like someone I knew once,' the senator mused.

Helena, his eldest child, was his favourite; and unless I had lost my intuitive powers, Julia would be next in line. Beaming, he leaned across Helena and clapped me on the arm. He ought to view me as an interloper; instead I was an ally. I had taken a difficult daughter off his hands, and proved I intended to stick with her. I had no money myself, yet unlike a conventional patrician son-in-law, I did not come round once a month whining for loans.

'So, Marcus and Helena, you are back from Baetica – in good repute as usual, say those in the know on the Palatine. Marcus, your resolution of the olive oil cartel greatly pleased the Emperor. What are your plans now?'

I told him about working with Petronius, and Helena described our skirmishes with the Censors' clerk yesterday.

Decimus groaned. 'Have you done the Census yourself yet? I hope you have better luck than I did.'

'In what way, sir?'

'Up I marched, full of self-righteousness for reporting promptly, and my estimate of my worth was disbelieved. I had reckoned my story was foolproof too.'

I sucked my teeth. I thought him an honest man, for a senator. Besides, after the business with his treasonous brother, Camillus Verus had to prove his loyalty every time he stepped into the Forum. It was unjust, since he was that political rarity: a selfless Public man. The condition was so rare, nobody believed in it. 'That's hard. Do you have any right of appeal?'

'Officially, there's no audit. The Censors can overrule anybody on the spot. Then they impose their own tax calculation.'

Helena's dry sense of humour was inherited from her father. She laughed and said: 'Vespasian declared he needed four hundred million sesterces to refill the Treasury after Nero's excesses. This is how he intends to do it.'

'Squeezing me?'

'You're good-natured and you love Rome.'

'What an appalling responsibility.'

'So did you accept the Censors' ruling?' I asked, chuckling slightly.

'Not entirely. The first option was to protest – which meant I would have to put in a lot of effort and expense producing receipts and leases for the Censors to laugh at. The second option was to pay up quietly; then they would meet me halfway.'

'A bribe!' cried Helena.

Her father looked shocked; anyway, he made a pretence of it. 'Helena Justina, nobody bribes the Emperor.'

'Oh, a compromise,' she snorted angrily.

Feeling cramped with three on the bench, I stood up and went to investigate the garden fountain on a nearby wall: a spluttery drunken Silenus pouring feebly from a wineskin. The poor old god had never been up to much; today his flow was being additionally obstructed by a fig which had dropped from a tree trained to grow against the sunny wall. I fished out the fruit. The gurgle resumed slightly more strongly.

'Thanks.' The senator tended to put up with things that failed to work. I strolled to a fancy border, where last year's pot lilies had been planted out. They were struggling against beetle, their leaves bitten and badly stained with rust. They weren't flowering, and would be seriously ailing next season. Lily beetles are bright red and easily outwitted, so I was able to knock some off on to the palm of my hand, then drop them on to the paving where I flattened them under my boot.

Checking the result of my work on the fountain, I told the senator about the dismembered hand. I knew he had paid for private access to one of the aqueducts. 'Our supply seems pretty clean,' he said. 'It comes from the Aqua Appia.'

'Same as the Aventine fountains,' I warned.

'I know. They receive priority. I pay a huge premium, but the rules are strict for private householders.'

'The water board regulates your quantity?'

'The board gives me an officially approved calix let into the base of a water tower.'

'Can't you bend it a bit and increase the flow?'

'All private access pipes are made from bronze to prevent their being illegally enlarged – though I believe people do try.'

'How big is your pipe?'

'Only a quinaria.' Just over a digit in diameter. The smallest, but given an uninterrupted flow day and night sufficient for a reasonable household. Camillus had no spare cash. He was the kind of millionaire who seriously needed to economise.

'Too small for objects to come floating down,' Helena commented.

'Yes, thank goodness. We get a lot of sand, but the thought of receiving body parts is decidedly unpleasant.' He warmed to his theme. 'If there were loose debris in the aqueduct my calix could become blocked inside the water tower. I might not complain immediately; private houses are always the first to be cut off if there's a problem. I suppose that's fair.' Camillus was always tolerant. 'I can't see the water board admitting that they'd found something unhygienic inside the castellum. I imagine I'm being supplied with sparkling water straight from the Caerulean Spring – but is the stuff from the aqueducts really safe to drink?'

'Stick to wine,' I advised him. Which reminded us to go indoors to dine.

When we passed through the folding doors to the dining room we found a more formal spread than was usual here, so fatherhood brought some benefits. There were seven adults dining. I kissed the cheek of Julia Justa, Helena's mother, a proud, polite woman who managed not to flinch. I greeted her arrogant elder son Aelianus with a mock sincerity that I knew would annoy him, then gave an unfeigned grin to the tall, more slightly built figure of his brother Justinus.

As well as the entire Camillus family and myself, there was Claudia Rufina, a smart but rather solemn young girl Helena and I had brought over from Spain who was staying here because we had no guest bed to offer her. She was of provincial birth but good family, and would be welcome in all but the snobbiest homes, since she was of marriageable age and sole heiress to a large fortune. Helena and I greeted her kindly. We had introduced Claudia to the Camilli in the flagrant hope that this could be their route to a villa at Neapolis at last.

So it might prove: we heard that she had already agreed to a betrothal. The Camilli must possess a ruthless streak. Less than a week after Helena and I had delivered this reserved young woman to their house, they had offered her Aelianus.

Claudia, who knew him from the time he had spent in Spain, had been brought up to be a good-mannered guest – and Julia Justa had not let her meet any other young men – so she had meekly agreed. A letter had been despatched to her grandparents inviting them to Rome to seal the arrangements straight away. Things had happened so fast it was the first we had heard of it.

'Olympus!' cried Helena.

'I'm sure you will both be extraordinarily happy,' I managed to croak. Claudia looked sweetly pleased by this concept, as if nobody had led her to think her well-being came into it.

They would be as miserable together as most couples, but were rich enough to have a large house where they could avoid one another. Claudia, a quiet girl with a rather big nose, was dressed in white in mourning for her brother, the intended heir, who had been killed in an accident; she probably welcomed something new to think about. Aelianus wanted to enter the Senate, for which he needed money; he would go along with anything. Besides, he was crowing over Justinus, his better-looking and more popular younger brother.

Justinus himself only smiled, shrugged, and looked mildly curious, like a sweet-tempered lad who wondered what the fuss was all about. I had once worked closely with him abroad. His vague air was masking a broken heart; he had fallen heavily for a blonde visionary prophetess in the forests or barbarian Germany (though once back in Rome he had swiftly consoled himself by starting an even more impossible liaison with an actress). Quintus Camillus Justinus always looked as if he didn't know the way to the Forum – but he had hidden depths.

The evening Passed off so peacefully that when we were dawdling home in the litter, ignoring the grumblings of the bearers who had expected me to walk alongside, Helena felt drawn to comment: 'I hope you noticed the transformation, now we have produced a child?'

'How's that?'

Her great brown eyes danced with complicity. 'Nobody takes the slightest notice of you and me. Not one person asked us when we were going to find somewhere better to live -'

'Or when I would be starting a decent job -'

'Or when the formal wedding was to be -'

'If I'd have known all it took was a baby I would have borrowed one long ago.'

Helena surveyed Julia. Worn out by several hours of accepting adulation, she was sleeping deeply. In about another hour, just as I nodded off in bed, all that would change. Most informers stay unmarried. This was one of the reasons. On the other hand, a night-time surveillance in some street away from home – even if it contained a tannery and an illegal fish-pickle still and was infested with garlic-eating prostitutes whose pimps carried butcher's knives – was starting to offer unexpected attractions. A man who knows how to prop himself up can doze quite refreshingly in a shop portico.

'What about Aelianus and Claudia?' asked my beloved. 'Your mild-mannered parents have the knack of taking prompt action.'

'I hope it works.' She sounded neutral; that meant she felt concerned.

'Well, she said yes. Your father is a fair man, and your mother wouldn't let Aelianus be trapped if it was likely to go wrong.' They needed Claudia's money badly, however. After a moment I asked quietly, 'When you were married to that bastard Pertinax, what did your mother have to say?'

'Not much.'

Helena's mother had never liked me – which proved there was nothing wrong with her judgement. Helena Justina's first marriage had been suggested for his own sticky reasons by her uncle (the one I shoved in the sewer later), and at the time even Julia Justa would have found the match hard to oppose. Helena herself had tolerated Pertinax as long as she could, then without consultation had issued a notice of divorce. The husband's family tried to arrange a reconciliation. By then she had met me. That was the end of it.

'Before her grandparents arrive, we'd better talk to Claudia,' I said. Since we had brought the girl here, we were both feeling responsible.

'I had a few words while you were hiding with my father in his study. And by the way,' demanded Helena warmly, 'what exactly were you two up to?'

'Nothing, my darling. I was just letting him complain some more about the Census.'

In fact, I had been testing an idea on Camillus Verus. His mentioning the Census had suggested a way that I might earn some money. I won't say I was exerting my authority by not telling Helena about it, but it would amuse me to see how long it took her to winkle out the details from her father or me. Helena and I had no secrets. But some schemes are men's work. Or so we like to tell ourselves.

Glaucus, my trainer, was as sharp as a kitten's claw. A short, wide-shouldered Cilician freedman, he ran a bath-house two streets behind the Temple of Castor. It had a select gymnasium attached for people like me who had life-and-death reasons for keeping their bodies in trim. A library and pastry shop amused other clients – the discreet middle class who could afford to pay for his overheads and whose moderate habits never disrupted the hushed atmosphere. Glaucus only offered membership by personal introduction.

He knew his regulars better than they knew themselves. Probably none of us were at all close to him. After twenty years of listening to other people revealing their secrets while he worked on their muscle tone, he knew how to avoid that trap. But he could tease out embarrassing information as smoothly as a thrush emptying a snail shell.

I had his measure. When he started the extraction process, I grinned and told him, 'Just stick with asking if I'm planning any holidays this year.'

'You're overweight and ridiculously tanned; you're so relaxed I'm surprised you don't fall over; I can tell you've been lying around on a farm somewhere, Falco.'

'Yes, it was hideously rural. All work, I assure you.' 'I hear you're a father now.'

'True.'

'I gather you've finally been forced to rethink your slack attitude to work. You've taken a big leap forward and you're in business with Petronius Longus.'

'You do keep your ears open.'

'I stay in touch. And before you ask,' Glaucus told me crisply, 'the water in this bath-house is drawn from the Aqua Marcia. It has the best reputation for coldness and quality – I don't want to hear any ugly rumours that you two schemers might be looking into nasty things in the reservoir!'

'Just a hobby. I'm surprised even you knew anything about it. Petro and I are advertising for divorce and inheritance jobs.'

'Don't try to bluff me, Falco. I'm the man who knows your left leg's weak from when you broke it three years ago. Your old fractured ribs still ache if the wind is northwesterly, you like to fight with a dagger but your wrestling's adequate, your feet are good, your right shoulder's vulnerable, you can throw a punch but you aim too low and you have absolutely no conscience about kicking your opponent in the balls -'

'I sound a complete wreck. Any other tantalising personal details?'

'You eat too many street-caupona rissoles and you hate redheads.'

'Spare me the canny Cilician peasant act.'

'Just let's say, I know what you and Petronius are up to.' 'Petro and I are merely harmless eccentrics. Are you suspicious of us?'

'Does a donkey shit? I've heard exactly what you're advertising,' Glaucus informed me sourly. 'Every client today has been full of it: Falco Partner are offering a fat reward for any information relating to dismembered body parts found in the aqueducts.'

The word 'reward' acted on me faster than a laxative. Weak left leg or not, I was out of his discreet establishment in the time it took to fling on my clothes. But when I raced up to the apartment in Fountain Court intent on ordering Petronius to retract his dangerous new poster, it was too late. Somebody was there before me, proffering another corpse's hand.