'If it will help. We have plenty.'

I grinned, thinking ahead to my bill. I had known rich people who hid their wealth with decent secrecy, and I had known men who owned immense estates but treated it quite matter-of-factly. The open vulgarity of Sabina Pollia's boast made me realise that I had stepped into a brash new world. 'I'll find out her price then--'

'If she has one!'

'She will have! Bound to be less than Hortensius Novus imagines. Realising how small a value she sets on him has helped many an infatuated lover see his beloved with new eyes.'

'You are a cynic, Falco!'

'I've done a lot of work for men who drought they were in love.'

She was looking at my slyly through half-closed eyes. We were back on the suggestive tack again. 'Falco, don't you like women?'

'I love them!'

'Anyone in particular?'

'I'm very particular,' I retaliated rudely.

'Our information was different.' Their information was out of date. 'I ask,' Pollia justified the question with outrageous wide-eyed innocence, 'because I am wondering whether you will be safe from Severina's wiles...'

'Severina will grant me complete immunity-- the minute she learns that the Falco bankbox contains only my birth certificate, my discharge from the legions, and a few suffocated moths!'

I screwed the subject back to business, obtained a few more facts I needed (an address, the name of a praetor, and most importantly, agreement on my fee), then I took my leave.

As I skipped down the broad white marble entrance steps, frowning because they were so slippery (like the householders), I noticed a sedan chair which had just arrived.

There were six carriers in cobalt livery, huge, broad-shouldered, glossy black Numidians who could push across the Forum of the Romans from the Tabularium to the Hall of the Vestals without once losing step despite the crowds. The chair had gleaming woodwork inlaid with tortoisesh.e.l.l, crimson curtains, a lacquered Gorgon on the door and silver finials on the poles. I pretended I had twisted my ankle, so I could hang about to inspect whoever would descend.

I was glad I waited.

I guessed it was Atilia.

She was a woman who wore a half-veil because it made her more attractive; above the veil's embroidered edge glowed dark, solemn eyes of oriental origin. She and Pollia had access to a great deal of money, and evidently spent as much as they could on themselves. She jingled with expensive filigree jewellery. She wore so much gold that such a weight on one woman was certainly illegal. Her dress was that shade of amethyst where the rich tint really looks as if ground-up gemstones created the dye. As she came up the steps I saluted her in a pleasant manner and stood aside.

She removed the veil.

'Good morning!' It was the best I could manage; I was struggling for breath.

This one was as cool as the icecap on Mount Ida. If Sabina Pollia was a peach, the new apparition was a fruit of rich, dark mystery from some exotic province where I had not yet been.

'You must be the investigator.' He expression was earnest, and highly intelligent. I was under no illusions; in the old Hortensius household she was probably a kitchenmaid-- yet she had the gaze of an articulate eastern princess. If Cleopatra could raise a look like this, it explained why respectable Roman generals had queued up to throw away their reputations on the mudbanks of the Nile.

'I'm Didius Falco... Hortensia Atilia?' She nodded a.s.sent. 'I'm glad of an opportunity to pay my respects--'

Her exquisite face grew sombre. A serious mood suited her; any mood would. 'Forgive me for not attending your interview; I was taking my young son to school.' A devoted mother: wonderful! 'Do you think you will be able to help us, Falco?'

'It's too early to say. I hope so.'

'Thank you,' she breathed. 'Don't let me take up your time now...' Hortensia Atilia gave me her hand, with a formality which made me feel gauche. 'Do come and see me, however, and let me know how your enquiries proceed.'

I smiled. A woman like that expects a man to smile; I imagine in most circ.u.mstances men try to avoid disappointing women like that. She smiled too, because she knew that sooner or later I would find an excuse to call. For women like that men always do.

Halfway down the hill I paused to survey their handsome views of Rome. Seen from the Pincian, the city lay bathed with a golden morning light. I loosened my belt, which was making my tunic feel damp against my waist, and cautiously steadied my racing breath while I took stock. Between them Pollia and Atilia had left me with a feeling, which I have to admit I was frankly enjoying, that I was lucky to get out of their house alive.

The omens were interesting: two glamorous clients whose vulgar lifestyle guaranteed to amuse me; a fortune-hunter whose past was so lively there must be a real chance to expose her where the official magistrate had failed (I love to prove a praetor wrong); plus a good fat fee-- and all of this, with any luck, for doing nothing much...

A perfect case.

Chapter VII.

Before I staked out the gold-digger, I wanted to explore the Hortensius menage. People tell you more than they think by where they live and the questions they ask; their neighbours can be even franker. Now I had gained a general impression, the sweetmeat stall where I had been given directions earlier was ripe for a return visit.

When I got there a hen who liked the high life was pecking up crumbs. The place itself was just a shack opposite a stone pine. It had a fold-down counter and a fold-up awning in front, with a small oven tucked away behind. The accommodation in between was so scanty that the stallholder spent a lot of his time sitting on a stool in the shade of the pine tree on the other side of the road, playing Soldiers against himself. When a customer turned up he left you long enough to get excited over his produce, then sauntered across.

The freeholders of the Pincian discouraged shops; but they liked their little luxuries. I could see why they let this cakeman park on their hill. What his emporium lacked architecturally was made up for by his bravura edibles.

The centrepiece was an immense platter where huge whole figs were sunk to the shoulder in a sticky bed of honey. Around this circular dish were tantalising dainties set out in whorls and spirals, with a few removed here and there (so no one need feel reluctant to disturb the display). There were dates stuffed with whole almonds the warm colour of ivory, and others filled with intriguing pastes in pastel shades; crisp pastries, bent into crescents or rectangles which were layered with oozing fruits and sifted with cinnamon dust; fresh damsons, quinces and peeled pears in a candied glaze; pale custards sprinkled with nutmeg, some plain and others cut to show how they were baked on a base of elderberries or rosehips. On a shelf at one side of the stall stood pots of honey, labelled from Hymettus and Hybla, or whole honeycombs if you wanted to take someone a more dramatic party gift. Opposite, dark slabs of African must cake drowsed beside other confections which the stallholder had made himself from wheat flour soaked in milk, piercing them with a skewer and drenching them with honey before adding decorative chopped filberts.

I was drooling over his specialities which were pastry doves filled with raisins and nuts before they were glazed and baked, when he popped up at my side.

'Back again! Find the house you wanted?'

'Yes thanks. Do you know the people at the Hortensius place?'

'I should think so!' The cakeman was a wizened stick with the careful movements of a man whose trade relies on delicate arts. The awning pole that was not labelled dolcia informed me he was called minnius.

I risked a frank question. 'What are they like?'

'Not bad.'

'Been acquainted long?'

'Over twenty years! When I first knew that clutch of puffed-up bantams they were a kitchen-sweeper, a mule driver, and a boy who trimmed the wicks of household lamps!'

'They have come on since then! I've landed an a.s.signment for the women. Know Sabina Pollia too?'

Minnius laughed. 'I can remember that one when she was a hairdresser called Iris!'

'Ho! What about Atilia?'

'The intellectual! I mean, she'll say she was a secretary, but don't suppose that implies a Greek bookish type. Atilia scribbled the laundry lists!' He chortled at his own anecdote. 'In those days I was hawking pistachios off a tray in the Emporium. Now I'm still vending confectionery-- from a booth the Hortensius lamp-boy owns. If anything this is a step down for me; the customers are ruder, I pay that b.a.s.t.a.r.d too much rent, and I miss the exercise...'

He cut into a tipsy cake, oozing with honey, and gave me a taste. Plenty of people take one look at my friendly visage and find themselves afflicted by dislike. Luckily the other half of society appreciates an open smile.

'Ask me how they managed it!' I would have done, but my mouth was full of wondrous crumbs. 'Even when they belonged to old Paulus they were all entrepreneurs. Every one of them kept a jar under the bed filling up with coppers they earned privately. They all had the knack of running special errands for extra tips. If your Pollia--'

'Iris!' I grinned stickily.

'If Iris was given anything for herself-- a hairpin or a length of fringe off a dress-- she turned it into denaru straightaway.'

'Did old Paulus encourage this?'

'Dunno. But he let it go on. He was pleasant enough. A good master allows his servants to save up if they can.'

'Did they buy their own freedom?'

'Paulus saved them the trouble.'

'He died?'

Minnius nodded. 'By trade he polished marble. There was plenty of work, even if he never made much at it; the will was generous to his people when he went.' Paulus could manumit a percentage of his household by bequest; my clients had the bold look of slaves who would have ensured they were among the favourites he chose for the privilege.

'They soon made good with their savings,' Minnius mused. 'Is there some special scheme for cargo ships?'

I nodded. 'Incentives; for fitting out a grain transport.' By coincidence I had been looking into corn imports shortly before this and was well up on all the fiddles. 'The scheme was started by the Emperor Claudius to encourage winter sailings. He offered a bounty, dependent on tonnage, for anyone who built new vessels. Insurance, too; he underwrote any ships that sank. The legislation has never been repealed. Anyone who knows that can still reap benefits.'

'Pollia had a ship that sank,' Minnius told me rather dourly. 'She managed to acquire a new one quite rapidly too...'

He was obviously suggesting it was the original ship with its name changed--an intriguing hint of sharp practice among the Hortensius crowd. 'Had she fitted out the ship herself?' I asked. Under the Claudian scheme a woman who did so would acquire the honours of a mother of four children: what my mother called the right to tear her hair in public and be treated to constant hara.s.sment.

'Who knows? But she was soon wearing earfuls of rubies, and sandals with silver soles.'

'What did the men do to earn their fortune? What line are they in now?'

'This and that. In fact this, that, and pretty well everything else you could name...'

I sensed coyness creeping over my informant: time to back off. I purchased two of his stuffed pastry pigeons for Helena, plus some slices of must cake for my sister Maia-- to reward her selfless gesture in recovering my swallowed bets.

The price was as exorbitant as I expected on Pincian Hill. But I did get a neat little basket containing a natty nest of vine leaves, to carry my confectionery home with clean hands. It made a change from the inky papers torn out of old scrolls of philosophy which were used to wrap up custards where I lived in the Aventine.

On the other hand, there is nothing to read on a vine leaf once you've licked it clean.

Chapter VIII.

Next I risked raising my blood pressure with a visit to a praetor.

In the days of the Republic two magistrates were elected annually (selected, since it was an appointment from the ranks of the Senate so not exactly subject to a free vote), but by my time legal business had increased so much it kept eighteen of them busy, two solely on fraud. The one who had investigated the gold-digger was called Corvinus. The Forum Gazette had familiarised me with the ludicrous p.r.o.nouncements of the current legal crop, so I knew Corvinus was a self-opinionated piece of pomposity. Praetors always are. In the scale of public appointments it is the last civil honour before a consulship, and if a man wants to parade his ignorance of modern morality then being praetor gives him dangerous scope. Corvinus predated the current Emperor's campaign to clean up the courts, and I reckoned the praetorship would be his last position now Vespasian was in charge.

Unfortunately for my clients, before Corvinus was retired to his Latium farm, he had had time to make his p.r.o.nouncement that poor little Severina had lost three wealthy husbands in rapid succession purely through bad luck. Well. That shows you why I think what I think about praetorian magistrates.

I had never met him, and in fact I didn't intend to, but after I came down from the Pincian I went straight to his house. It was a quiet mansion on the Esquiline. A faded trophy hung over the door, commemorating some ancient military show in which an ancestor had been honoured for not running away. Indoors were two statues of dour republican orators, an indifferent bronze of Augustus, and a huge chain for a watchdog (but no dog): the usual tired trappings of a family which had never been as important as

it thought, and was now sinking into oblivion.

I hoped Corvinus would be in c.u.mae for the summer, but he was the sort of conscientious fool who probably sat in court on his own birthday; he grumbled about the pressure of business-- yet fed his ego by bungling pleas all through the August heat. A bored porter let me in. Bundles of ceremonial rods and axes were lolling in the atrium, and I could hear a murmur from a side room where his honour's lictors were gnawing their midday snack. In a side pa.s.sage a row of benches had been provided so clients and plaintiffs could hang about looking pathetic while the Praetor snored off his lunch. Sunlight slanted in from high square windows, but once my eyes grew accustomed to the harsh interplay of light and shade I discovered the familiar crowd of moaners who clog up the offices of famous men. All watching one another, while they pretended not to; all trying to dodge the mad-eyed know-all who wanted a conversation; all set for a long and probably disappointing afternoon.

I avoid sitting around catching other people's diseases, so I strolled briskly past. Some of the hangdog crowd sat up straighter, but most were prepared to let anyone who looked as if he knew what he was doing carry on doing it. I felt no qualms about queue-jumping. They had come to see the Praetor. The last thing I wanted was to endure a pointless interview with some tedious legal duffer. Praetors always have a clerk. And because litigants are so touchy to deal with, a praetor's clerk is usually alert. I had come to see the clerk.

I found him in the deep-shade of an inner courtyard garden. It was a warm day, so he had moved a folding campstool out to the fresh air. He had a startling tan, as if it had been painted on-- possibly the result of a week's concentrated vine pruning. He wore a large seal ring, pointed red shoes, and a glittering white tunic; he looked as sharp as a furnace-stoker on his festival day off.

As I expected, after a long morning up against senators' sons who had been caught peering into the changing rooms of women-only bathhouses and vague grannies who wanted to ramble through three generations of family history to explain why they stole four duck eggs, the clerk was glad to push aside his pyramid of pet.i.tion rolls and enjoy a chat with me. I introduced myself straightaway, and he replied that his name was Lusius.

'Lusius, some clients of mine are worried about a professional bride. Name of Severina; I don't know her cognomen--'

'Zotica,' said Lusius abruptly. Perhaps he thought I was a time-waster.

'You remember her! Thank the G.o.ds for efficiency--'

'I remember,' growled the clerk, growing more expansive with this chance to express his bitterness. 'There were three previous husbands, who had all lived in different sectors of the city, so I had to cope with a trio of disorganised aediles all sending me incomplete local details, four weeks after I required them-- plus a letter from the Censor's office with all the names spelt wrong. I ended up co-ordinating the doc.u.ments for Corvinus myself.'

'Routine procedure!' I commiserated. 'So what can you tell me?'

'What do you want to know?'

'Did she do it, basically.'

'Oh she did it!'

'That's not what your man decided.'

Lusius described his man in two brief words: the usual opinion of a praetor if you hear it from his clerk. 'The honourable Corvinus,' Lusius confided, 'would not recognise a boil on his own b.u.m.' I was starting to have a lot of time for Lusius; he seemed a man of the world--the same shady world I inhabited myself.

'Routine again! So will you tell me the tale?'

'Why not?' he asked, stretching his legs in front of him, folding his arms, and speaking as if he thought anyone who worked as hard as he did deserved time off for anarchy. 'Why not, indeed? Severina Zotica...'

'What is she like?'

'Nothing special. But the madams who cause the most trouble never look much to outsiders who are not involved with them.' I nodded. 'And a redhead,' he added.

'I should have known!'

'Imported as a teenager from the big slave market at Delos, but she got there by a roundabout route. Born in Thrace-- hence the hair-- then pa.s.sed about with different owners; Cyprus, Egypt, then before Delos Mauretania, I think.'