“Forget them, Nux; men are never worth it,” commiserated Helena. I ignored the seditious girl talk. I was carrying the family treasure, and likely to lose my grip if I forgot to concentrate. Once again I remembered the army: anyone who had humped his quota of military equipment on a Marian Fork halfway around Britain-javelins, pickaxe, toolbag and contents, earth-moving basket, mess tins and three days’ rations-could manage a baby and a dog for a few strides without raising a sweat. On the other hand, a military kettle does not thump you in the rib cage or try to slide off your shoulder; well, not if properly stowed.
In Fountain Court someone was having grilled scallops for dinnermore charred than grilled, by the smell of them. Dusk had fallen now. Shadows of the looming tenements made the way treacherous. A solitary lamp burned on a hook outside the funeral parlor, not so much for the benefit of passersby as to allow the unshaven staff to continue playing a game of Soldiers they had scratched in the dust. That tiny circle of light only served to make the narrow corridor of our street more dim and dangerous. Broken curbstones harbored slithery vegetation on which it was easy to skid to a bone-breaking fall. We trod cautiously, knowing that every stride took our sandals into a morass of dung and amphora shards.
Helena said that she would take charge of bathing the baby; we normally did this at the laundry, using any unwanted warm water after Lenia closed up. I decided to go upstairs and see Petronius. I had to tell him about the Janiculan house before he heard of it elsewhere.
His boots were lying askew under the table in the outer room; he was outside the folding doors, lazing in the last rays of sunlight on the balcony. This always gave me a jar. It was too reminiscent of my own bachelor life. I half expected to find some tasseled dancing girl sprawled in his lap.
He was having a drink. I could cope with that. He let me find myself a beaker and pour my own tipple.
“Been to your new house?” So much for telling him.
“Everyone in Rome seems to have known about it, except me!”
He grinned. He had reached the benevolent phase of dreaming on a bench after dinner. Remembering how easy it was not to bother preparing a platter for one, I guessed he had not had much dinner, in fact, but that just brought the dreamy phase forwards. “So long as the rest of us liked the idea, why trouble you, my son?”
“Well, the plan is a dud. Helena now thinks we cannot live so far out of town.”
“Why did she buy the place then?”
“Probably the rest of you, who were in on the secret, forgot to point out the disadvantages.”
“Well, is it a nice property?”
“Wonderful.”
We swallowed our drinks in silence for a while. I heard familiar women’s voices down below at street level, but supposed it was Helena talking to Lenia. Lenia was probably sounding off about the latest horrors imposed on her by her ex-husband, Smaractus, the landlord who owned this block. I cradled my cup, thinking what an evil, unsanitary, money-grubbing, tenant-cheating insult to humanity he was. Petronius had his head lolling far back against the apartment wall behind us, no doubt pondering hatreds of his own. His cohort tribune, probably. Rubella: an ambitious, unscrupulous, discipline-mad, tyrannical hard man who-according to Petro-could never wipe his bum with a latrine sponge without consulting the rules to see if a ranker was supposed to do it for him.
Footsteps scuffled outside. Petro and I both sat quite still, both suddenly tensed. You never knew here whether visitors were bringing you bad news or just a battering. He never knew if they were unwelcome manifestations of his own life and work, or some violent hangover from when I had lived here.
Someone came through the door into the room behind us. The steps were light and quick, even after mounting six flights of stairs. The person emerged through the folding doors. I was nearest; I stayed motionless, though ready to jump.
“Gods, you two are still a disreputable pair!” We relaxed.
“Evening, Maia.” We were not drunk, or even lightly disheveled. Still, all my family liked to be unfair.
I wondered why my sister would be visiting Petronius. I knew him well enough to tell when he was nervous; he was wondering the same.
Petro raised the flagon, offering. Maia seemed tempted, but then shook her head. She looked tired. Almost certainly she needed solace, but she had four children relying on her at home.
“Helena said you were up here slumming, Marcus. I can’t stop; Marius is downstairs, inspecting that terrible dog of yours. He wants to know if there’s a puppy yet. I’ll murder you for this-”
“I am doing my utmost to keep Nux chaste.”
“Well, speaking of chaste maidens, I heard something today that I thought you would be intrigued to know,” said Maia. “I was talking to one of the other mothers whose daughter is in the Vestal Virgins’ lottery like my Cloelia. This woman happens to know Caecilia Paeta socially and had visited their house this afternoon. She’s more welcome there than I am-but then her husband is some sort of Temple of Concord priest-well, I may be unfair to the man; perhaps he’s a decent step-washer… Anyway she told me she found all the Laelii running about in a fine tizz, and though they want to pretend publicly that there’s nothing amiss, she knows why. Something has happened to Gaia Laelia.”
I sat up. “Are you going to tell us?”
Maia had relished the tale up to this point. Now her voice stilled with genuine concern. “They have lost her, Marcus. She has absolutely vanished. Nobody knows where the child is.”
XXVI
IT WAS NONE of our business. At least, that was what we would be told by the Laelii. Anyway, there was little we could do at that late hour.
Petronius said he would escort Maia and her young son back home, not that Maia thought twice about the risk. Helena and I went straight to bed. All of us hoped, as you have to when a child is lost, that by morning everything would have resolved itself and Gaia would have turned up, leaving the adventure to become just one of those neverforgotten stories people retell every year around the fire at Saturnalia to embarrass the victim. But when a missing person is a child who has said that her family wants her dead, it evokes a bad feeling, however calm you try to stay.
Next day, Maia went early to see her friend, the mother who had told her the news. Anxious herself, the woman had already called to see Caecilia Paeta, Gaia’s mother. The child had not come home. The family were making light of it publicly.
Helena then visited the Laelius house with Maia-as matrons offering sympathy-but they were briskly rebuffed at the door.
Children lose themselves for all sorts of reasons. They forget the way home. They stay with friends without bothering to tell anyone. Occasionally, though, they have made sinister friends nobody knows about, and are lured to dangerous fates.
Children like to hide. Many “lost” children are found again at home: stuck in a cupboard or head-down in a giant urn. Usually they have managed not to suffocate.
Sometimes girls are abducted for brothels. Petronius Longus muttered to me in an undertone, that in the disgusting stews where anything goes there would be a very unpleasant premium on a six-yearold from a good home, who was known to be a potential Vestal Virgin. As soon as Maia reported next morning that the child was still missing, he took it upon himself to put out an immediate all-cohort alert.
“You are my star witness, Falco. Description of the child, please?”
“Jupiter, how do I know?” Suddenly I felt more patient towards all the vague witnesses I had previously yelled at for giving me incompetent statements. “Her name is Gaia Laelia, daughter of Laelius Scaurus. She is six years old; she’s small. She was well dressed, with jewelry-bangles-and her hair fixed up-”