One Virgin Too Many (5 page)

"Does that include Gaia herself?" asked Helena coolly.

"Gaia is passionate about being entered."

"Little girls do have such quaint ideas." The Vestals were not Helena's favorite women, apparently. I was surprised. I thought she would have approved of their honored role and status. "Well, let us hope she is successful," Helena went on. "Then she will be taken straight to the House of the Vestals and handed into the control of the Pontifex Maximus."

"Er--quite," agreed the flamen, belatedly sensing an undercurrent. Presuming, however, that his appeals had been successful, he seemed to be about to leave. Taking a firm hold on Julia, I slid down the corridor and towards another room where I could conceal myself. I glimpsed Pomona's priest, in his cloak and birchwood prong, with his back to me as he bade Helena farewell; he hid me from her view as I crept past.

I waited until I was sure he had left before I emerged.

As I opened the door behind which I had been hiding, a small determined figure blocked my way. Julia was whipped from my grasp. I groaned, but only quietly.

I was facing a tiny, frail old woman whose black eyes bored like bradawls. A bad conscience--for which I had no damned reason--pinned me to the spot.

"I suppose you have a good explanation," announced the new arrival fiercely, "why you failed to come home for the little one's birthday?" I did have. Famia's funeral rites, such as they were, for the few scraps that had been left of him by the lion: an explanation, though not good. "And I do know what happened to Famia--though I had to hear it from dear Anacrites!"

"Hello, Mother," I said. I made it sound meek. "We were forced to spend Julia's first birthday becalmed off Otia. . . . Are you going to congratulate me on my new status as a pillar of the state religion?"

"Don't give me any of your silly nonsense," scoffed Ma.

As usual, I had done what I thought she wanted, only to find her unimpressed.

VI

THIS HAD TURNED into a tiring day. First, I had had to dance around Petronius Longus while he showed his pique; now here was Ma. She had various complaints: primarily why I had let her favorite, Anacrites, come home from Tripolitania half dead from the wounds he acquired in the arena. Playing gladiators had been his own idea, but I would get the blame for it. Luckily, it meant he was back as a lodger at Ma's house for further nursing, so she was not entirely upset.

"Why are you letting the poor thing go back to his job at the Palace?"

"Anacrites is grown up, Ma. His career decisions are nothing to do with me."

"You two worked so well together."

"We made a good pairing for the Census. That's over now."

"You could find other work to share."

"Neither of us wanted to remain in partnership. I showed him up."

"You didn't like him, you mean." Ma kept insisting that I did not really know Anacrites; that I had missed his fine sensitivity; that I belittled his talent. My own theory was that anyone who had tried to persuade an exotic foreign potentate to murder me should be allowed to run his own life--after being sealed in a barrel and dumped a thousand feet under the sea. Somewhere rough off Britain, preferably. "You never gave him a chance. Listen, Anacrites has his sights set on running a new branch of the security services. You could help him with that, Marcus--"

"Alternatively, I could rot in the Pontine Marshes, eaten by leeches and infected with fever. That would be a whole lot more fun."

"And what about Petronius?" demanded Ma, changing tack to catch me out.

"Petronius belongs in the vigiles."

"He belongs with his wife!"

"The wife who has decided that she now belongs with a potted-salad seller."

"I blame you," said Ma.

"Not guilty. I wouldn't shove even Silvia into a life of pressed tripe and lettuce leaves. Petronius looks respectable, but he's a wandering dog who never saw where his best interests lay until it was too late. Of course the mere fact that I told him all along that he was stupid need not prevent people placing the blame on me!"

"I don't dare ask what you did to poor Famia," Ma muttered darkly.

"He did it to himself. I brought home the remains, I'll be a good uncle to the children, and I'll try to look after Maia."

"She won't thank you."

"No, Ma."

My mother's eyes narrowed, and we shared one of our rare moments of sense: "So how is she, son?"

"Too quiet. When I told her the news, she showed almost no emotion."

"That won't last."

"I'm keeping an eye out for when she breaks down."

"Just don't you go upsetting her!"

Helena Justina, who had observed this conversation in silence from her wicker chair, holding the dog on her lap while allowing Julia Junilla to sit on her feet, smiled at me tenderly.

She was no help. What was more, I faced dinner with her parents that evening, where I would have to stand up to further inquisition about
their
family problems.

"You ought to be around at your sister's instead of loafing here," ordered my mother. I intended it; I wanted to ask Maia about the reception for Queen Berenice and how would-be little Vestal Virgins fitted into it. "Oh, don't bother--I'll go!"

Ma had forestalled me. The Virgins would have to wait. Petronius Longus would say virgins never do that. Still, the kind of virgins Petro joked about were never just six years old.

* * *

After Ma had gone, I waited for Helena to tell me about the Flamen Pomonalis visit. I had to pretend that I had come home right at the end of it, not that I overheard the whole interview. Helena could play up to me as a hidden accomplice if a conspiracy had been agreed on beforehand, but she hated to be spied on secretly. For one thing, she resented being supervised.

Obviously now deeply troubled, she gave me a succinct report.

"What exactly was Gaia's story yesterday when you saw her alone before I came home, Helena?"

"She said, 'One of my relations threatened to kill me.' And that it had frightened her," Helena told me, looking thoughtful. "She had got it into her head that she needed to see an informer, so I left it for you to deal with."

"I'm starting to regret sending her away without asking more questions. I know you thought I should have gone into it more thoroughly."

"You had your own troubles, Marcus."

"This little girl may have worse."

"She has grown up in a most peculiar home, that's for certain," said Helena with some force. "Her grandparents will have been married by a strange old formal ceremony, and as they were the Flamen Dialis and the Flaminica, even their house itself had ritual significance. No child in such a home knows a normal upbringing. The daily life of the priest and priestess is proscribed by ridiculous taboos and rituals at every turn. It leaves little time for family matters. Even the children formally take part in religious ceremonies--presumably, Gaia's father went through all that. And now Gaia, the poor mite, is being pushed into becoming a Vestal Virgin--"

"An escape, by the sound of it!" I grinned.

"She is six," growled Helena. She was right. That was no age to be removed from home and subjected to thirty years of sanctity.

"Do I take it, Helena, you intend to investigate?"

"I want to." She felt wretched, which always unsettled me. "I just don't see how to go about it yet."

She was broody all day, not ready yet to share her further thoughts. I applied myself to clearing up goose droppings. Helena had made it clear that this was a daily rite which ancient traditions decreed could only be carried out by the Procurator of Poultry.

* * *

Dinner that evening came as a relief. The one thing to say for the noble Camilli was that, despite their financial problems, they dined well. In that, they far excelled most Roman millionaires.

Their money was tied up in land (in order to protect their right to remain on the senatorial list), but a delicately poised tier of mortgages allowed them to live in a tolerable style. For instance, when they had invited us to dinner, they sent their carrying chair for Helena and the baby. We stuffed it full of presents and Julia's toys. I carried the baby. Helena was bringing letters from her brother, a bright sprig called Quintus Camillus Justinus whom I knew fairly well.

Helena had two brothers, both younger than her and both heavily bossed by her when they strayed too close. The elder, Aelianus, had been betrothed to an heiress from Baetica in southern Spain. The younger, Justinus, ran off with her. I had gone to Tripolitania, funded by the senator, with a brief to find the eloping pair. I knew it was thought to be my fault that Claudia Rufina had decided to swap brothers. Untrue, of course: she fell for the one with better looks and a more attractive character. But I had been involved in first bringing her to Rome as a prospective bride for Aelianus, and the senator's wife had long held the opinion that anything touched by M. Didius Falco was bound to go wrong. In that, Julia Justa was following the views of my own family, so I made no attempt to disprove her theory. May as well live with the grief you know.

Helena and I had found that under the stress of desert conditions the young lovers had fallen out, but we ignored their finer feelings and cobbled them back together. We persuaded Justinus to cut his losses and marry Claudia (and her money), first sending the couple on a visit to Spain in order to reconcile her wealthy grandparents.

Justinus had been searching for silphium, the extinct luxury condiment. He had hoped to rediscover it and make millions. Once that mad plan had failed, the only way I could prevent him running off to be a hermit was to lure him into replacing Anacrites as my partner. He had no qualifications, and since he had now gone off to Spain indefinitely, at my third attempt to find a partner I had stuck myself with one who knew absolutely nothing--and who was not even available.

Helena had decided we could all share a house (which might explain why she had told the Flamen Pomonalis that we lived on the Janiculan). Knowing her, she had probably bought a place already. Watching her work around to telling me would give me hours of secret fun.

You might think that securing a Baetican olive oil fortune and a pleasant wife for their talented boy would earn me laurel wreaths from Justinus' parents. Unfortunately, it still left them with the problem of their disgruntled elder son. Aelianus had lost the money, lost his bride, and had to stand down from the senate elections for a year, all because his brother had made him look a fool. Whatever his parents felt about the resolution to his brother's life, Aelianus was the one they now had sulking at home. A young man in his twenties, with no occupation and very few manners, can dominate a household even if he spends most of his time out on the town.

"It seems best to let him alarm the neighbors with his rowdy friends," murmured the senator on our arrival. "So far he has not actually been arrested or brought home on a trestle covered in blood."

"Is Aulus joining us for dinner?" asked Helena, using Aelianus' family name yet trying to disguise the fact that she hoped not. The dutiful elder sister, she always wanted to be fair, but of the two boys, Justinus was much more like her in temperament and attitude.

"Probably not," Camillus Verus, her father, replied. He was a tall, shrewd, humorous man with sprouting gray-tinged hair that his barber had still not successfully tamed. I noticed a hunted air when he spoke of his sons.

"At a party?" I asked.

"This may sound hard to believe, but I have been trying to get him into one of the priesthoods--give him some honors to his name. If he is where he is supposed to be, it's the Sacred Grove of the Arval Brothers. This is the main day of their annual ceremonial."

I whistled approvingly. It seemed the polite thing to do. The chosen clique presided over festivals and religious holidays, with an additional remit to pray for the good fortune of the imperial family. The Arval Brothers' activities derived from the dawn of history, when they had prayed for the health and fruitfulness of crops--in token of which, they all wore chaplets of corn tied on with white ribbons. The thought of the rather gruff Aelianus bedecked with a corn-ear crown made a hilarious climax to a good dinner. But frankly, if a son of mine wanted to join the corn-dolly brethren, I would lock him in the broom cupboard until the fantasy sweated out of him.

"So--tell us your news, Marcus."

I announced my elevation and brushed aside congratulations like a good modest Roman. "I warn you, sir, my conversation is limited nowadays to ways of worming poultry. My life is now fixed by the ritual events of the goddess Juno's calendar."

"What--no more informing?" I caught his eye briefly. Decimus, as I was sometimes emboldened to call him, was a close friend of Vespasian, and I never knew quite how much he knew about my official work.

"Stuck with the birds."

He grinned frankly. "You deserve the status, but can't you ditch the aviary?"

"I am supposed to feel honored."

"Bugger that!"

Helena's mother gave him a sad look, and decided to lead me to my dining couch before her rude husband infected her newly respectable son-in-law with disreputable views. Until now, I had been the dangerous republican and Decimus the conventional Curia hack. I felt slightly unnerved.

As we reclined, Julia Justa placed olive bowls and saffron prawns before me with her long beringed hands. Helena leaned over and stole the prawns. "Tell me, Marcus," said her mother, resplendent in white and gold that glittered almost as much as her new, worrying friendliness. "I have always wondered--how exactly do they persuade the Sacred Geese to stay on their purple cushion when they are being transported in a procession?"

"I'll find out for you. I suspect they make them hungry first, then a man walks alongside with a fistful of grain to bribe them to sit still."

"Like taking a child to a party," said Helena. Her mother looked approvingly at ours, who was sitting quietly in the arms of a slave, chewing her pottery rattle; she had even tactfully chosen to gnaw a toy her grandparents had bought for her.

Planning her moment. Little Julia knew how to disrupt mealtimes. She had learned new skills since the estimable Camilli last had a chance to dote on her.

"Isn't she good!"

Helena and I smiled the shameless public smiles of experienced parents. We had had a year to learn never to confess that our cute-looking dimpled baby could be a screaming troublemaker. We had dressed her nicely in white, combed her soft dark hair into a sweet curl, and now we were waiting with our nerves on edge for the inevitable moment when she decided to roar and rampage.

It was, as always, a good dinner, one which would have been more enjoyable had I felt able to relax. I liked Helena's father and no longer disliked her mother. They seemed to have accepted that they were stuck with me. Perhaps they had also noticed that I had not yet lived up to expectations and made their daughter unhappy, nor had I been thrown in jail (well, not lately), barred from any public buildings, lampooned in any scurrilous satires, or featured in the rogues' gallery in the
Daily Gazette
. Even so, at these gatherings there was always a risk somebody would say something offensive. Sometimes I thought Decimus secretly hoped for the thrill of it. He had a wicked streak. I knew it well; he had passed it on intact to Helena.

"Papa and Mama, you can help us with something," said Helena over the dessert course. "Do either of you know anything about Laelius Numentinus, the Flamen Dialis, and his family?"

"What's your problem with a flamen?" her father demanded.

"Well, I have had an early run-in with the silly old bastard," I hedged, "though it was not face-to-face."

"Naturally. You'd be at arm's length, held off with his precious wand."

"No, he has been retired; his wife died and he had to stand down. Not that it stops him complaining, apparently. The first thing that greeted me in my new post was a crisis caused by his displeasure at unwanted goslings scampering about the Capitol. I managed to avoid meeting him, or I would have been very brusque."