Ma and I exchanged glances, willing to go along with any plan that made my sister behave like her old self, at least temporarily. My mother took charge of Julia for me. In no time I found myself marching over the Aventine with Maia, and after a few wrong turns while we found the address, we were surveying the house of the family Laelius. I was not impressed. Maia and I immediately agreed that as prospective buyers or tenants, even if we were desperate, we would never even have given it a once-over.

Who chose this place? The ex-Flamen himself, grief-stricken for his newly dead wife--or at least for the loss of his position on her death? His son, Gaia's father? His errand-running son-in-law, the Flamen Pomonalis? Accepting that his household might be as liberal as my own, was it his womenfolk? Daughter? Daughter-in-law?

No. It had to be a realtor. Wincing at the gloomy place from down the street, I knew this was some housing market hack's idea of a residence for a retired high priest. A ma.s.sive gray portico that must be causing street subsidence. High, narrow windows and mean roofs. A pair of tall urns either side of the forbidding doorcase, both empty. A property with no attractive features, situated in a dull area, overlooking nothing much. A large, cold building on the dank side of the street, it must have lodged like a permanent fixture on the agent's list for a decade. Few people with enough money to afford such an edifice would have such poor taste as to accept it. But a Flamen Dialis, turfed out of his state residence, fresh from a funeral, unworldly and desperate to be rehoused, must have seemed to the agent like a gift from the Olympian G.o.ds. The proverbial soft touch. A gambler in a hurry, with absolutely no idea . . . and too sure of himself to take real expert advice.

"I hope he's not there," muttered Maia. "I deduce I will not care for him."

"Right. Judging by his att.i.tude to my goslings, he's what Ma would call a nasty old basket."

We were not given a chance to test this theory. When we managed to persuade a door porter to answer our knocking, he told us there was n.o.body home at all. The man kept us out on the porch; he agreed to go and make enquiries for us, though I wondered how, because he had a.s.sured us the entire family had gone to a funeral. Even the Flamen Dialis (as the porter still called him despite his retirement) was attending the ceremony.

Maia raised her eyebrows. "The Flamen Dialis is never allowed to see a body, but he can go to funerals," I whispered, showing off my arcane knowledge, as we stood nervously alone on the threshold like untrustworthy trinket-sellers who were about to be sent packing. "Just as well he has gone. He would never have liked hearing that you had palled up with Caecilia."

"He won't like hearing we were here today at all then," Maia said. She made no attempt to keep her voice down. "I fancy Caecilia will receive a lecture about mingling with unsuitable company. Encouraging rough callers. Allowing common connections for the dear special little girl."

"Caecilia sounds all right after all."

Maia laughed ruefully. "Don't believe it, Marcus. But the Flamen won't know it was no choice of hers that I sought her out at home."

"Are you saying he mistreats her?"

"Oh no. I just reckon his word is law and his opinions are the only ones ever allowed to be voiced."

"Sounds like our house, when Pa lived there," I joked. Maia and I were both silent for a moment, remembering our childhood. "So the Flamen is bound to be rude, autocratic, and unfriendly--but do we believe he wants his precious little Gaia dead?"

"If he shows his face I'll ask him that."

"You'll what what?"

"Nothing to lose," said Maia. "I'll tell him as one mother to another, I want to ask Caecilia Paeta what has caused her sweet little girl--the dear new friend of mine--to be so unhappy and to take such a curious step as to approach my brother the informer with such a ridiculous tale."

Perhaps it was fortunate after all that the porter then returned to confirm there was no one at home to speak to us. He was now accompanied by a couple of reinforcements. It was clear they were intended to persuade us to leave quietly. I would like to say that was what we did, but I had Maia with me. She hung around, insisting on leaving a message for Caecilia Paeta to say that she had called.

While she was still hara.s.sing the porter, a woman appeared in the rather dark atrium that we could just glimpse over his shoulder. She looked about the right age to be Gaia's mother, so I asked, "That your friend?"

As Maia peered in and shook her head, the young woman was surrounded by a group of females who must be her attendants; they all moved as one out of view again. It seemed a strangely ch.o.r.eographed little scene, as though the maids had swept up their mistress and she succ.u.mbed to being whisked away.

"Who was that?" Maia demanded bluntly, but the porter looked vague and pretended he had seen no one.

After we left, the odd glimpse stayed with me. The woman had had the air of a member of the family, not a slave. She had walked towards us as if she was ent.i.tled to come and speak to us--yet she seemed to let the maids change her mind for her. Well, I was probably making too much of it.

Maia allowed me to escort her home again, and I collected Julia. When we left my sister's house, outside in the street a group of little girls was playing a Vestal Virgins game. These were not pampered babies in some careful patrician residence. The tough Aventine tots not only had a stolen water jug to carry on their heads, but had obtained some embers and had lit themselves a Sacred Fire on their own little Sacred Hearth. Unfortunately, they had chosen to re-create the Temple of Vesta rather close to a house with a very attractive set of wooden balconies, some of which were now on fire. As it was not on Maia's side of the street, I carried on walking in the traditional manner. I don't like getting young girls into trouble. Anyway, they had looked as if they would bash my head in if I interfered.

Around the corner, I did pa.s.s a group of vigiles sniffing for the smoke. My guess was they had had to endure rather a lot of tiny female arsonists since the Vestals' lottery was announced. The sooner the Pontifex Maximus pulled out a name, the better for everyone.

XVII.

FOUNTAIN COURT SEEMED quiet when Julia and I returned home. The sensible after-lunch drunks had collapsed on the side of the street with the dank shadows and old cabbage leaves. The daft ones opposite would have fiercely sunburned foreheads, noses, and knees when they woke up. A feral cat mewed hopefully, but kept well away from my boot. Disreputable pigeons were picking over what the down-and-outs had left them from the charred bread Ca.s.sius, our local baker, had chucked out when he shut up his stall for the day. Flies had found half a melon to torment.

There were empty stools outside the barber's shop. A thin pall of black smoke hung over one end of the street, reeking of burned lamp oil; sulfurous fumes rose from the back of the laundry. I thought about checking how the goslings were, now they lived in the laundry yard, but Julia and I were weary after half a day doing nothing in particular. My neighbors were taking their usual siestas, which for most of those idlers meant all-day ones, so the man who walked up the street ahead of us stood out alone. I had seen him emerge from the funeral parlor, clearly repeating directions. I can't think why he had asked the undertakers for information, given the number of family mausoleums that end up containing urns with the wrong ashes due to those incompetents.

This fellow ahead of me was of average height, whiskery, hairy-armed, brisk in his walk, dressed in a dark tunic and rather floppy calf-high boots. He checked outside the basket weaver's lockup as though he was going in there; then he skipped up the steps to the first-floor apartment where I lived.

Whatever he wanted, I was in no real mood for strangers, so I stopped off to talk to Lenia. She was outside her business premises, in the part of the street she had commandeered for clothes-drying; the morning wash was twisting about on several lines in a slight breeze, and with an irritated expression she was listlessly straightening the most tangled wet garments. When she saw me, she gave up immediately.

"G.o.ds, last day of May and it's too hot to move!"

"Talk to me, Lenia. Some beggar just went up to our house, and I can't be bothered going to find out if he's someone who wants to annoy me."

"Just now?" croaked Lenia. "Some other beggar went up to look for you too."

"Oh good. They can annoy one another while I have a rest down here."

I leaned my backside against the portico. Lenia took Julia by both arms and practiced walking her a few steps. Julia grabbed a dripping toga, with hands that had somehow grown more grubby than I had realized.

We heard a yell from the apartment.

"Who was your beggar?" I asked Lenia lazily.

"Young chap with purple trim on his tunic. Yours?"

"No idea."

"Mine said he knew you, Falco."

"Permanent look as if his breakfast is giving him gyp?"

"That's the pug-faced darling, by the sound of it."

"Helena's brother. The one we don't care for. Sounds as if the man I followed home agrees." The yelling continued. "Helena isn't up there, as far as you know, Lenia?"

"Doubt it. She borrowed one of my washtubs. She'll drop it in when she comes home."

"Know where she went with this tub?" I tried. Lenia just laughed.

There were a few more yells from opposite. I might have changed my mind and intervened, but someone else turned up to help with the heavy work, so I hid behind a wet sheet. It was Pa. As soon as he heard sounds of trouble, he rushed up the stairs to see the fun. He barged in and added his voice to the shouting, then Lenia and I watched him and Camillus Aelia.n.u.s appear outside on the porch, grappling the man with the floppy boots. They were dragging him half on his knees, an arm apiece. Since they seemed to know what they were doing, I just grinned to myself and let the officious pair get on with it.

They began forcing him down the steps, but soon found that holding him between them while they also descended was too difficult. As they all tumbled back to street level, inevitably they let him go. He made off. If he had come past me I might have shoved out a foot and tripped him, but his luck was in; he went the other way.

I winked at Lenia and sauntered across to the heroes who were offering mutual congratulations on the way they had saved my apartment from attempted robbery.

"I see you elected to show mercy," I commented sarcastically, leading them indoors again. "You let him go, very kindly."

"Well, we drove him off for you," gasped Pa, who always took time to regain his breath after a fracas. Not that it ever stopped him, if he saw something stupid to join in. "Jove knows what he thought he could lift from this place." As a professional auctioneer, Pa lived among a treasure trove of furniture and objects. He found our austere living quarters unsettling. Still, keeping our valuables in store at his warehouse meant Helena and I did not have to worry about losing them to some light-fingered Aventine lowlife. (That's a.s.suming Pa himself kept his hands off our stuff; I had to check up on him regularly.) "He was no thief," I corrected quietly.

"He thought I was you, Falco," Aelia.n.u.s told me, sounding indignant. I was pleased to see his cheek was badly bruised. He tested it gingerly. The bones had stayed intact; well, probably.

"So you stopped a punch on my behalf! Thanks, Aulus. Good job you can handle yourself."

"Who's this, then?" demanded Pa, whose curiosity was notorious. "Your new partner?"

"No. This is his brother, Camillus Aelia.n.u.s, the next shining star in the senate. My partner has very sensibly gone to Spain."

"That should make it easy to combine your expertise," Pa quipped. Justinus had no expertise for informing, but I saw no need to enlighten Pa that I had lumbered myself with an even more unsuitable colleague than Petronius or Anacrites. Aelia.n.u.s might not yet have heard that his brother was setting up with me, because I saw him look askance. "Were you expecting that riffraff to drop in?" Pa then asked.

"Something like it, possibly. I reckon I was followed home last night--someone checking my address."

"G.o.ds!" exclaimed Aelia.n.u.s, enjoying the chance to sound pious, while insulting me. "That's rather thoughtless, Falco. What if my sister had been here today?"

"She's out. I knew that."

"Helena would have bashed the intruder with a very heavy skillet," Pa declared, as if it were his right to boast of her spirit.

"And made sure she tied him up," I agreed, reminding the pair of their error. "Then I could have found out who sent him to put the frighteners on."

"Who do you think it was?" demanded Pa, ignoring the rebuke. "You've only been back in the country about four days."

"Five," I confirmed.

"And you already managed to upset someone? I'm proud of you, boy!"

"I learned the art of upsetting people from you, Pa. I was the chosen target. But I think," I said, making it pleasant for Aelia.n.u.s, "the rough message was really being sent to our friend here."

"I never did anything!" Aelia.n.u.s protested.

"And the message is: Don't try it, either." I smirked. "I suspect that you, Aulus, have just taken delivery of a hint to back off from offending the Arval Brothers."

"Not those disasters?" groaned Pa in heavy disgust. "Anything to do with the old religion makes my flesh creep."

I pretended to be more tolerant: "Fastidious father, you don't have a senatorial career to build from scratch. Poor Aelia.n.u.s has to grit his teeth and enjoy cavorting about in a rustic dance, waving ears of moldy grain."

"The Arval Brethren are an honorable and ancient college of priests!" protested their would-be acolyte. He knew it sounded feeble.

"And I'm Alexander the Great," returned my father pleasantly. "Those lads are ancient and as savory as an old dog t.u.r.d on the Sacred Way, waiting for you just where you plant your sandal. . . . So what have you done to annoy them, Marcus?"

"We only asked too many questions, Pa."

"Sounds like you!"

"You taught me to stir."

"If this is the reaction, maybe you should stop, Falco," suggested my beloved's brother, as if it had been all my idea.

"Don't let the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds get away with it," Pa counseled us. It was not his head the man had taken a swing at.

I opted for giving Aelia.n.u.s the choice of whether we now backed down like good boys, reminding him that his father wanted him to obtain more evidence for political leverage; he decided to ignore his father, which--in the presence of my own--I could only applaud. Aelia.n.u.s had been sent to see me by Decimus, but he now felt absolved from that duty and took his bruises home, where his mother was bound to blame his mishap on me.

Sometimes, dealing with the Camilli was even more complex than maneuvering around my own relatives.

Pa snuggled up to the table where we normally ate, like a man who was hoping for a free dinner. He looked shifty. "I got your message that you wanted to speak to me. Is this about Helena's project?" I was annoyed. If anybody else had given me this opener, I could have used it to discover what Helena had in hand. I resented Pa too much. "Did she take up my tip about using Gloccus and Cotta, then?" His His tip? My heart sank. "Only I have heard since," my father confessed uneasily, "they may be going downhill a bit--" tip? My heart sank. "Only I have heard since," my father confessed uneasily, "they may be going downhill a bit--"

Now this outfit really did sound dubious. "I am sure," I p.r.o.nounced pompously, "Helena Justina can sort out anyone who gives her trouble."

"Right," said Pa. He looked anxious. "We should probably feel sorry for them."

He jumped up. If he was leaving before he had tried to screw a meal out of me, he must be feeling even more guilty than usual. I leaned on his shoulder and shoved him back onto the bench. When I told him I wanted to discuss help for Maia, he remembered a very urgent appointment; I made it plain he had to talk, or have his head stuffed in the doorjamb. "Look, we have a family crisis and it's down to us men. Ma can't do anything this time; she's already looking after Galla's brood financially--"

"Why should she? b.l.o.o.d.y Lollius has not had a fight with a lion." Now Famia was dead, Lollius probably ranked as the most horrendous of my brothers-in-law. He was a Tiber boatman, a foul bubble of riverbank sc.u.m. His one redeeming feature was his knack of keeping out of the way. It saved me having to think up new ways to be rude to him.

"Unfortunately not. But you know b.l.o.o.d.y Lollius is b.l.o.o.d.y useless, and even when he gives her any money Galla cannot be called a deft budget manager. Their children don't deserve to have been born to such terrible parents--but Ma drags the whole worthless crew through life as best she can. Look, Pa, Maia now has to find the rent, food, plus school fees for at least Marius, who wants a career in rhetoric--and she just found out that Famia never paid his funeral dues, so she even has to pay for a memorial to that scoundrel as well."

Pa drew himself up, a broad, gray-haired figure with slightly bandy legs; forty years of fooling art purchasers helped him look convincing, even though I knew he was a fraud. "I am not unaware of your sister's position."

"We all know it, Pa--Maia most of all. She says she will have to work for that short-a.r.s.ed tailor again," I told him gloomily. "I always thought the leery wretch had his eye on her."

"Time he retired. He doesn't do much; he never did. He has all those girls who weave for him, and half the time they serve in the shop as well." After a brief distraction while he felt jealous of the tailor's alluring young loom girls, Pa became thoughtful. "Maia would be perfect at running a business."

He was right. I felt annoyed that he had first seen it--and Maia, who loathed Pa even more than I did, would have to be led extremely gently towards any idea which came from him. Yet we now had the answer, and to my surprise Pa actually volunteered to persuade the old tailor that he wanted to be bought out. Best of all, Pa offered to provide the cash.

"You'll have to make the fellow think it's his own idea."

"Don't teach me how to do business, boy." It was true that my father was extremely successful; I could not avoid knowing it. A brilliant talent for bluff had made him far richer than he deserved.

"Well, tomorrow is a public festival day, so you can shut up your shop--"

"I can't believe I heard that blasphemy! I never close for footling festivals."

"Well, do it this time and buzz off to strong-arm the tailor."

"You coming with me?"

"Sorry; prior appointment." I refrained from admitting I would have to maneuver fractious Sacred Geese. "He won't let it go cheap, Pa."

"Oh, I've got funds--since you've spurned me!" (Pa had once offered to find me the money to support my bid for middle-rank status; there was no way he would ever appreciate that it was a measure of character when I earned the cash myself.) "Leave this to me," declared my incorrigible parent, throwing himself into being magnanimous as eagerly as he had once fled the family coop. "You just enjoy yourself playing at being a gooseboy!" The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had just been waiting to thrill himself with this insult.

"Don't forget," I retaliated. "Keep everything in your name for when some new chancer takes Maia's fancy. You don't want to wake up one day and find yourself financing Anacrites!"