Saturnalia (9 page)

XVI

Helena needed rescuing from domesticity. I told Galene to watch the children, and Albia to watch Galene. Albia agreed readily; she was a born tyrant. We showed Gaudus where the local bakery was; I reckoned that if Galene took him she would be pregnant before the pies coloured in the oven. I was barely coping with ownership of my first generation of slaves; it would be some time before I could face the idea of a dynasty.

I had warned everyone we would be back in half an hour, though we were planning to bunk off for longer. (Next time I would imply I was going out for ages, but then return unexpectedly after ten minutes... )

Suddenly I understood why there were so many suspicious masters. I also understood why they were bad-tempered; I hated the slaves and the soldiers for putting me--a fair-minded, friendly, relaxed character--in that position.

Helena and I stood on the Marble Embankment and slowly inhaled the cool December air like captives drinking in the fresh breath of freedom. Then we set off together on foot for our next enquiry. Always thinking ahead, Helena had persuaded Zosime from the Temple of JEsculapius to give directions for finding Mastarna, the physician Zosime had quarrelled with, who had looked after the young man Gratianus Scaeva until somebody segmented him.

Knowing only that Mastarna lived 'somewhere by the Library of Pollio', it took us a while to identify his house, though I knew that area well and found an apothecary nearby who told us where to go.

'Presumably you have dealings with him.' I like to find out a few facts in advance.

'Not that one. I always thought Etruscans favoured roots and shoots. You know--gathering herbs by moonlight, pounding bulbs, assembling folklore potions.'

'Mandrake and religious magic?'

'Bloody dogmatist.' The apothecary spat. It was an insult rather than for medical relief 'All he wants are scalpels and saws. I need the ones who prescribe ointments and laxatives. He'll always have idiots with too much money pleading for him to slice bits off them, but how am I to earn a living? Give me a decent empiricist prescribing purges any day. I may as well live near the beast market as across the alley from Mastarna. At least then I could hope the real butchers would give me free oxtails...'

He was still maundering on when we shuffled away and knocked on the doctor's door, keeping our backs to the complaining apothecary in the hope he would not follow us over there. Mastarna was out, but his housekeeper said he would be back soon, and we could wait. She was a short, wide little bundle with her girdle right under her bulging bust, who faced the world with her left shoulder forward, squinting at us with her wall eye. I started to wonder if

Mastarna was one of those sinister medical men who collect freaks. He certainly collected fees. He lived in a small but beautifully decorated apartment on the good side of a quiet street. He possessed much desirable furniture, which meant he earned more than I did. His whole house reeked of terebinth resin, however; I thought ours, always smelling of young children, rosemary hair-wash and grilled meats, was healthier.

When he came home, he was impeccably groomed and elegantly turned out. All I knew of Etruscans was that my own nose, which plumb-bobbed straight down from my forehead with no bumps, was reckoned to show that Etruscans had lurked in the Didius pedigree somewhere about the time of the last Carthaginian war. From tomb portraits that had passed through my father's none-too-legitimate auctions, I had gleaned a picture of reclining men and women in rather Greek poses, with slanted eyes and cheerful smiles. Mastarna had none of that strange pointy-eared elfin look. He was as wrinkled as a roof gargoyle. When I asked, he said he came from Forum Clodii, but he looked more Roman than I did and sounded like a swanky lawyer lying his head off over some writ in the Basilica. His tunic was pristine and he wore a toga over it. The toga was meticulously pleated; he was so pleased with the effect, he kept it on at home, and it stayed on even after he learned we were not prospective patients who would need to be impressed.

He had a goatee beard. That pigeonholed him for me. The apothecary had been right to curse him.

'It is so good of you to see us without an appointment. I hope you don't mind us calling.' I let Helena do the softening up. Before I could interrogate him fairly, I needed to get over my irritation with his beard. 'Didius Falco is investigating the disappearance of Veleda--we can mention her openly to you, since I believe you knew she was staying at the Quadrumatus house. Inevitably, in view of the timing, my husband has to consider the sad death of your late patient.'

No shadow passed behind Mastama's eyes, yet I knew he would refuse to help us. His reply was smooth and meaningless. If he was diagnosing a splinter in your finger, he would be just as bland. I wouldn't trust this man to mop up vomit--not that he would. He thought himself well above that level of patient care.

'I am loath to ask his grieving relatives about him,' I joined in, speaking firmly. 'But since it appears that the priestess killed him, I need to investigate Scaeva, and any possible relationship he had with her. As he was your patient, you must have known him as well as anyone.'

'A delightful young man.'

Such cliches were what I would expect from a pomposity with goat's whiskers. 'Why did you attend him? What was his illness?'

'Sniffies and--' Mastama cleared his throat slightly--'sore throats. He suffered badly from catarrh in winter.'

'Do you mind if I ask how you treated him?'

'Patient confidentiality--'

'He's dead, Mastama; he won't sue. Being run down and suffering from an extension of childhood illnesses does not usually constitute a family secret anyway.' It did not normally lead to decapitation either, but this was not the time for bedside wit; Mastama lacked any sense of humour. 'What did you do for him?'

Mastama was clearly annoyed, but he merely said, 'These are seasonal disorders. Difficult to cure.'

Helena leaned forward, a stylus poised over a note-tablet between her long fingers. 'I believe you belong to the dogmatic school?'

Such a question, from a woman, surprised Mastama. 'We diagnose scientifically. We study the human body through research and theory.'

'Research? You approve of dissection of corpses?' Helena had raised a contentious subject. Mastama's expression immediately became veiled. 'Did you dissect Scaeva?' I nearly choked. I was supposed to be outspoken, but Helena could be outrageous. I wondered if she had gleaned this background knowledge from Zosime. Not necessarily: Helena was quite capable of rushing to a library, while I had been mooning at Flora's Caupona yesterday, and reading up the major schools of medical thought with a scroll in one hand while she tucked the children into bed. She was addressing the doctor with an expression full of reasonable sweetness, while she posed her brutal questions: 'I wondered if the family might have allowed an autopsy, since somebody had already begun the process...'

Mastarna looked savage. But again his tone stayed level: 'No, I did not carryout a post-mortem examination on Gratianus Scaeva. Nor did I seek to do so. Cutting up corpses is illegal, young woman. Apart from a short period, in Alexandria, it always has been.' He made Alexandria sound a pit of depravity. That would be news to the learned liberals at the world's greatest library.

I was pretty sure that Scythax, the Fourth Cohort's vigiles doctor, had more than once conducted anatomical research using the remains of dead criminals, but I rettained ttom saying so. When the criminals had been thrown to the lions, not much of their corpses remained for Scythax to play with anyway.

It was my turn to tackle a frog in my throat. 'Tell me, Mastarna: did you attend Veleda too? She's on the run, and it is important for me to gain some idea of her physical condition.'

'The woman was hysterical, in my opinion.' Mastarna sounded curt. I saw Helena bristling. Unaware of it, Mastarna carried on condemning himselPS 'Hysterical in the medical sense. I diagnosed a classic case of "wandering womb"--' I had heard Helena raving against doctors who dismissed all female ills as neurotic, and she particularly loathed the Greek idea that women's organs moved around their bodies, causing a kind of suffocation and hence a hysteria that explained any female symptoms, whether piles or athlete's foot. Her set face was eloquent:
to suggest that a woman with a headache has her womb between her ears proves that the doctor has decayed matter where his brain should be
... 'The woman refused to succumb to an internal examination.' As Helena visualised Mastarna offering to subject Veleda to a vaginal groping, no doubt conducted with a crude expanding metal uterine probe, she took a deep angry breath

I intervened quickly: 'I believe Veleda had asked for trepanation. Was it your suggestion?'

'Trepanation was not carried out.'

'Were you willing to do it?'

Mastarna seemed evasive. 'It never came to surgery.'

'But you had discussed it with her?'

'Not in person. Trepanation is a tradition in German communities, I understand--though I cannot believe it is often successful among unskilled barbarians. Veleda had asked whether any of the doctors who attend the Quadrumatus family possessed the necessary knowledge. Cleander's discipline forbids surgery; he was unwilling to attend a barbarian in any case. Aedemon is less snobbish but follows a theory that all illness is caused by putrefaction and can be addressed with chants and amulets, with purges, astringents and laxatives...' Mastarna's lip curled in contempt. 'Carried out to excess, that can be more lethal than the knife. I do on occasion conduct drilling to relieve pressure in the head--' He paused. 'But not this time.' He seemed uncomfortable. Maybe he thought I would criticise him for considering dangerous surgery on a state prisoner.

'So what happened?'

'Another practitioner was called in.'

'Cleander recommended her? Zosime. Her methods sound much less radical than skull-boring.'

'So I believe.'

'Still, you and she had a disagreement about the appropriate treatment?'

Recovering his confidence, Mastarna passed off the quarrel with Zosime as unimportant. 'There can be many approaches to ill health. All or any of them may work. Zosime was trained by my colleague, Cleander. His regime and mine are antipathetical.'

'But Zosime was not permitted to attempt her gentle regime?' Helena said.

Mastarna seemed reluctant to admit this, unaware that Zosime had told Helena she had been given the hint to abandon Veleda's care. 'It was an issue between her and the patient. Then, of course, the lady from Germany removed herself altogether.'

'Patient choice,' I commented. It was clear from Mastarna's expression he thought that kind of licence was a bad thing.

The thought crossed my mind that if Veleda had trusted Zosime and wanted to continue with her suggested gentle treatment, after her escape the priestess might have traced the female doctor to the Temple of .AEsculapius. When we left Mastarna, irritated by more unsatisfactory answers from that suppurating smoothie (Helena's definition), I considered making our way home via Tiber Island. It would have meant a detour. And I reasoned that if Zosime had been willing to own up to further contact with Veleda, she would have confessed it to Helena when she came to our house yesterday. So late that afternoon, I tracked down Clemens and the soldiers on search duty; I dispatched them to do a room-by-room search of the temple and its hospital buildings. If Veleda was there, they would recognise her or I hoped they would. I had warned them always to be aware that she might have changed her appearance. They were not to manhandle women with the rough treatment I had seen the Praetorians using, but they were to check carefully for height and eye colour, neither of which could be altered.

They did not find her. As Helena pointed out, if she ever had been at the hospital after her escape, then as soon as questions started to be asked, she would have been moved elsewhere. It was generally thought that runaways who could demonstrate they were seeking refuge from brutality were helped to disappear. If the staff sympathised with Veleda's predicament, she could have been whisked off by the same escape route.

After the search, we let it lie. I had no evidence at this stage that would justify either leaning heavily on Zosime or threatening the administrators.

It had been a busy, though mainly unproductive day. I was ready for a quiet night in, planning my next moves. This was where, on a normal enquiry, I would have welcomed a case consultation with one of the Camillus brothers. It would be a good ploy on a winter's night. We could have sat around a warm brazier munching almonds and apples, with a glass or two of table wine, and Helena would steer us towards sensible conclusions while we men tried to duck the issue...

No chance of that. Aelianus was in Greece--and I was about to hear very bad news about what had happened to our missing Justinus. It began when we were greeted on the threshold by Albia, in tears.

'Marcus Didius, something terrible has happened--I've been searching for hours but I can't find the dog anywhere. Nux has run away!'

XVII

'You are joking, Albia? You cannot seriously mean, not only do I have to search for a missing murder suspect, and my missing brother-in-law--but now I must waste yet more time and effort looking for a
dog?'

'I cannot go; you do not let me roam outside.' That never stopped her when she wanted to buy cinnamon cakes.

Albia spent a lot of time imagining she was a princess, among whose accessories was a noble hunting hound, a role she crazily assigned to Nux; the little dog just let her get on with it. Albia loved Nux. Nux returned the favour. To the rest of us my pet was a scruffy, often stinky bundle, whose matted, multicoloured fur nobody would willingly investigate closely. Nux was friendly and full of life, but she had no pedigree. She had adopted me. She came from the streets and saw me as a soft touch. She was right, too. Nobody who had a choice would let Nux into their home. I took in the dog, and later I took in Albia, because their lives at the time were even worse than my own. Besides, in both cases, I blamed Helena. She wanted to believe she was in love with a generous person, a benefactor of the oppressed. She had willed me to do it. Both times.

'Poor Nuxie was upset when the soldiers came, Marcus Didius.' 'Have the bastards mistreated her?'

'No, but she doesn't understand why they are all in her house.' 'She'll come home of her own accord.'

'How can you be so
heartless?
The streets are wild with revellers--she will be terrified!'

Infected by Albia's agitation, both my children began wailing. Julia and Favonia, two fine little tragic actresses, were clutching Nux's favourite toys and looking piteous. Needless to say, I soon found myself promising to go out and find the lost doggie. Trusting young faces beamed at heroic Papa, expecting miracles.

Albia came with me. I think she suspected I would bunk off to a wine bar. (No, sweetheart; that was last night.) Eventually, when we had walked all the local streets and alleys, feeling like fools as we called the dog's name, I got sick of being jumped at by revellers in fancy dress who then ran off whooping. I marched to the vigiles' patrol house, and asked to see Petronius. Albia stuck with me, glaring balefully.

'Petro--I want you to tell the men to look out for my dog, please.
Don't say anything!'

Petronius Longus eyed up the situation; saw I was being supervised; saw that this was not my own idea. He revelled in my discomfiture. 'You mean, Falco, my hard-pressed lads are to ignore all the arsonists, plotters, market-trashers, temple-defilers, robbers, rapists and heartless killers--'

'I said, don't say anything.'

'What--not even,
I hope you've come to collect your dog?'