Graveyard of the Hesperides (31 page)

“I'll have to go and see him.”

“No, Gran. His parents will look after him. This is for his safety while they try to save him. Just make sure everyone knows you're heartbroken.”

She was silent, resisting me, then she burst out instead: “Were those dogs with him?”

“Going crazy.”

“Who's got his dogs? All he would care about would be the dogs.”

“His parents have all three, at least temporarily. I suspect Appius will help sort something out. The men are all devastated … I'm doing what I can to discover who attacked him. So now can you tell me, please, what Gavius said to you.”

She set about it, an efficient storyteller. It was identical to what Appius had said, though flavored with sneers about her grandson's foolish fancy for Rhodina. “I forgot all about her years ago, but when he said it, I remembered. I didn't think much of her. Flirty, bosomy little piece. I can tell he really wanted her—and he never bothered with anyone afterward. I thought our boy had a lucky escape there. You want to know about the barmaid? If you ask me, that one was only interested in finding some man soft enough to be conned into bringing up her children. That Rhodina. She was one of those types, you know—a man only had to wink at her and she fell pregnant. Of course that wasn't her fault. Some women just can't help conceiving.”

“She could have kept to herself.”

“Oh, she worked in a bar, Albia! No hope of keeping her legs crossed. She would have lost her job.”

“She bore two little tots, apparently.”

“And some.”

“There were more?”

“I'm sure.”

“So she wasn't young?”

“She
started
young.”

“They all do. Be fair—they have to, Gran. Whether it's their own sad choice or they are slaves and shoveled into it. Did the other babies die naturally, or did she get rid of them? Did Rufia help her sort herself out?”

“I wouldn't know. I never did anything like that, and none of my daughters neither. Well,” said Prisca, being realistic. “As far as they ever told me.”

I was still thinking about the barmaid's little ones. “If it wasn't Rhodina who picked up the two children that night, can you suggest anyone else?”

Prisca shrugged. “Someone who wanted a ready-made family? Must have been someone who knew that Thales or someone had polished off that Rhodina and buried her. Then, since we live in a cruel world, most likely they thought they could make some money selling the brats to a slaver. I expect they were horrible, snively little things.” She implied “not like my grandchildren.” It was probably true, since her descendants would be chubby and contented on kidneys in a pastry lid, oozing with gravy …

“I don't suppose their lives were very happy,” I said. “Weren't they very small? Yet old enough to be left with a minder. If they are still alive, they must be coming up to adulthood; they will remember nothing of their mother or her history.”

“So you can't expect to find them?” Until that moment I had not intended even to look. Damn. As an informer I was always picking up this kind of responsibility.

“Only if I can learn who took them. It's a very small chance.” Almost not worth bothering, Albia. Leave it alone!

“It's not their fault, the life they were born into. If anyone had known, people would have tried to do something for them, I expect. Our Gavius would have looked after them, he was silly enough. Put them down to sleep on a dog blanket. Added two bowls to the row…” She was sniffing now, buffing at her eyes irritably with the back of her wrist.

“I know. Your grandson is a good one.”

“The best.” She started crying properly. On principle she blamed the onions, but I was allowed to acknowledge what had really caused her tears.

*   *   *

I had to sit with her while she grieved over the danger her grandson was in. She refused fuss, so I stayed there very quietly.

It struck me nothing is as simple as it looks. I could easily dismiss the Ten Traders and White Chickens as filthy enclaves of vice: all drink, prostitution, extortion and slave-trading, alien to respectable people like me and Tiberius. Yet he and I had both done things we would never talk about at dinner parties.

And here, despite the rawness, it was still possible to expose pockets of normal family life. Some people had skills, held down regular jobs in the community at large. Walk in here, past the peculiar-sexed doll with the livid eyeliner, and you found an ordinary grandmother cooking up a stew using age-old peasant ingredients, utensils and methods. Comfort food, tasty and gelatinous, always with pearl barley because that was her way of doing it. She saw the vice, yet somehow kept apart from it; in her world there was family love and even compassion for orphans of flirty flibbertigibbets.

I myself had once been fostered into that kind of environment. It could be harsh. There was no luxury. But it nurtured life, and where there was life there could eventually be chances.

Maybe, I thought, what happened at the Garden of the Hesperides had nothing to do with drink, prostitution, extortion or slave-trading. Those things only provided a background. It was about domestic emotions, not trade.

Mind you, if so, it had been carried out and concealed rather professionally.

*   *   *

I was on the verge of leaving. I could no longer bear the strain of this fond grandmother's unhappiness for her Gavius. I wanted to trust her, but I probably should not have told her the truth; the point was for the villain or villains to see everyone reacting as if Gavius was genuinely gone. Still, Prisca's tears were perfect. Besides, Gavius might yet die on us.

Just as I took my leave, his grandmother burst out with something: “You mentioned Rufia.”

“Yes?”

“I don't think she would have helped that other one. She hated her.”

I paused. “What happened? Jealous of Thales bunking up with Rhodina? Younger, prettier, bustier and more successful with the men?”

“I don't know about jealous. But Rufia had always reckoned Rhodina meant trouble. She tried hard to persuade Old Thales to get rid of her. Stupid, really. You know men; that only helped make him notice her.”

“I know. If you want a man to do something, Gran, just tell him not to.”

“I never went to the Hesperides,” said Prisca. “We didn't have much money so I used to put meals together for them all at home. When we had an outing we used to go to the big thermopolium on the Clivus Salutis where they do a lot of fish and they welcome family parties. So I can't tell you all of it. But you hear things. There was a struggle going on there over something, that's a certainty. And Rufia was always going to come out on top.”

So you had to wonder. Could the barmaid everyone always thought had been murdered, in fact be behind the other killings?

 

XLVIII

When I went outside, Tiberius' water jug was empty. He gave me a questioning look, as if I had been a long while, though he had waited patiently.

Coinciding with my emergence, people turned up at the Brown Toad and made for the interior I had just left. Foremost was Menendra, followed as always by her two men. Macer must have let them go. I suppose they had not actually done anything (anything he knew about). Trypho had not identified them and Macer did not want the burden of documenting an arrest.

Today the heavies had satchels slung over them; Menendra was carrying a note tablet and stylus. They looked curiously like a bunch of auditors descending for an inspection.

“Hold it, Menendra! The old cook indoors just heard that her grandson has been killed. She's extremely upset. Give her some recovery time.” Watching closely, I detected some flicker in the woman's harsh features. “Gavius,” I said softly, letting Menendra know I was checking her reaction. “He lives in the same alley as the people you tried burgling. Maybe you know something about it?”

“Why should I?” As usual she went into angry mode. “Shift out of my way, Albia.”

Staying put, I gestured to the writing equipment. “Doing a fruit-bowl survey?”

She stared. She must have forgotten I had been told by the Dardanian girls that she supplied orchard produce. We all knew that was an invention. Convinced that whatever Menendra did now had once been Rufia's scheme for self-enrichment, I held out my hand imperiously, asking to see her tablet.

Tiberius stood up from his bench and seconded me. “Show us your notes, please.”

Everything turned nasty. I tried to take the tablet. Menendra refused to let me. I grabbed hold. We tussled for possession, tugging at the wooden boards. I was biting my lip; she was cursing me.

At the same time, her two men fell on Tiberius. They seized his arms, toppled him over backward onto the outdoor table and started slamming his head against the boards. They looked about to crack his skull open.

“Leave him!” I yelled. I let go. Menendra staggered. Tiberius, who was sturdy enough, was fighting back, though he was at a two-to-one disadvantage and already down. Dammit, I was not prepared to lose my bridegroom before we even sacrificed the sheep. “This man is an aedile and sacred to Ceres. Touching him offends the great goddess. Stop, or you will be hanged for it.”

This was true. Aediles had no bodyguards because they were sacrosanct. Also true was that Faustus stood little chance. His attackers had no more to lose. “What can you do?” jeered Menendra.

“Have you all arrested.” My mood had changed. My voice was dangerously quiet. She heard it and signaled to her men, who grudgingly released their victim. Then I shouted to Macer, whom I had just seen approaching down the street with a group of vigiles, probably coming to see us.

*   *   *

“Good timing!” gasped Tiberius, hauling himself upright while the troops grabbed his assailants.

I rounded on Menendra. “You think you control this area—but see, the rule of law still holds!”

Tiberius held up a hand to indicate I should be calm. Without being told, Macer and his men were searching the three in custody. They emptied out the heavies' bags, adding Menendra's note tablet to a pile of others that scattered on the table. They found purses containing a small amount of money, then stripped each man of lethal-looking knives.

Macer was cheerful. “Oh joy. I can have them for going tooled up.” Arms were illegal. Even the Praetorian Guards wore togas and pretended to be harmless civilians. The ruthless bastards took a sinister relish in this joke.

Tiberius looked closely at the knives. “I can't see any blood, but this one—” He balanced a stiletto on one hand. “This could be what was used to stab Gavius the marble-supplier. It was a narrow blade.” He explained to Macer how Gavius had been attacked, letting it sound fatal.

Macer knew that his cohort had been asked to keep an eye on Mucky Mule Mews after the parents had their attempted burglary. He could have felt he had let that family down—but as a vigiles officer he had no truck with guilt. There were so many worse failures to burden his busy conscience.

He announced, rather pompously, that since the men had been involved in a killing he would haul them to the station house again, Menendra too. They protested—a formality. He laughed and told them on his watch you were guilty until proved innocent. In fact, traditionally, you were guilty until “proved” guilty. “Especially if I don't like the look of you.”

Since I was there, Menendra was searched too, by me. I discovered nothing but Macer said, “I'll find a cell for you too. You look like a whore who is bound to have done something.” Roman justice. It dated back to Romulus. Those Sabine women were delighted to be abducted. What were they complaining about; they got husbands, didn't they?

In her good clothes and in middle age, Menendra did not look much like a prostitute, though she was hard enough to have been one once. While she argued, I examined the various note tablets turned out on the table. I thought if she really had taken over Rufia's full range of activities, they would contain sordid details of women who slept with customers in bars, maybe even client names and brothel accounts. Arrangements with slave-importers and foreign traffickers. Notes of which pathetic mites worked where, what income came in from fornication, hours, percentages, price lists.

Not exactly. Big surprise. There were prices all right. I found rates for the following: barley, oats, buckwheat, millet, peas, chickpeas, split peas, beans in endless varieties, linseed, sesame, even gourds.
Nuts, seasonal, apply for prices
 … One set of notes contained a list of eating houses. It had monetary figures, sometimes with pay-day ticks.

Astonished, I stared at Menendra. She glared back defiantly. I said, “Either ‘Mustard Seed' and ‘Broad Bean' are your secret codes for sex workers, or these figures reveal your trade is far more mundane—you deal in
pulses
?”

She enjoyed my shock. “That got you! I am the dry-goods queen. Think about it.” Now she looked like a miser counting his gold, salivating over every coin, calling the big aurei his darlings. She positively revelled in her commercial power. Part of her joy was that nobody, including me (especially me), had realized a financial empire could be created in this specialized field. “How many food shops and bars exist in Rome?”

“Oh I get it. You have identified a real niche market. High commerce is all about three things: wine, olive oil and wheat. But up goes an imperial edict saying ‘Serve no meat'—then suddenly the food of the common people becomes a vital commodity too.”

“There wasn't enough; Rufia saw that. She started a little lupin round. There still isn't enough of the right stuff—or not conveniently available, not in good quantities, not in enough variety. We make arrangements so the bar owners don't have to. They love us for it.” Her glare was as unpleasant as she could make it. “This is not illegal. I am helping keep people's bellies full, with foods that the Emperor wants them to guzzle. You cannot touch me.”