“As well as almost hourly demands to discuss the issue with your girlfriend.” That came out as somewhat critical.

“Helena Justina is extremely persistent.”

“Now she has sent you?”

“No, she knows nothing about it. I intrude on women on my own account.”

“She will find out.”

“I shall tell her myself.”

“Will she be annoyed?”

“Why? She knows how much I desperately need to speak to you about Gaia Laelia. I climbed in the window after reasonable requests failed, not because I was looking for a cheap thrill.”

“More expensive than cheap, if you are caught, Falco.”

“Don’t I know it! So why is there this obsessive secrecy about the high-flown Laelii?”

Constantia put aside her feminine dib-dabs and leaned towards me earnestly. Her gown was modestly pinned, yet I felt an odd quirk of alarm just at seeing a Virgin’s pale bare neck above the gown’s loose dark yellow folds. “Never mind why, Falco.”

I was annoyed. She ignored it. “All right; what about Gaia? I know she talked to you about becoming a Virgin-first at the reception for the Queen of Judaea. Her mother tells me she was brought back afterwards too?”

“Yes.”

“So what worries did she want to talk about?”

“Only being a Virgin. I thought the dear little thing had a wonderful enquiring attitude. A most promising candidate. She consulted me about all the rituals. Naturally, I was as helpful as I could be.”

“I am consulting you now,” I growled. “And you are not helping me.”

“Oh dear!” Her pout would not have disgraced any slightly tight tavern waitress flirting with a customer.

I restrained my annoyance. “Gaia told me somebody in her family wanted to kill her. Jupiter, what in Olympus will it take to make anyone in authority listen and regard this as serious?”

“Nothing. She told me the same. I thought it was the truth.”

I leaned back on the couch, finally feeling that some mad nightmare might be ending. I breathed slowly. My troubles were not over, however. The Vestal in whose private apartment I was dallying reached over and stroked my forehead, then offered me wine.

She had a Syrian glass jug on a chased tray. She cannot have known I was coming to see her; it must be her regular nightcap. There was only one goblet. We agreed it would be unwise to send out for another one.

“What do you think?” she asked courteously as I sipped. “I don’t know the name, but I am promised it is good.”

“Very nice.” I did not recognize its vintage either, but whatever the grape and origin, it was more than acceptable. I would like to have tried it on Petro. In fact, I would have liked to show Petro this whole situation and watch him shoot off into a catalogue of howling incredulity. “A gift from an admirer?”

“Honoring Vesta.”

“Very devout. So what did Gaia say?” I refused to be sidetracked. “Which of them has threatened her?”

“Nobody will harm her. She is in no danger, Falco.”

“You know something!”

“I know she is now safe from anyone in her family. But I cannot say where she is. Nobody knows that. You have to discover the answer.”

“Why should I?” My temper was up now. “I have already spent all day on this. I am exhausted, and baffled by the hindrances put in my way. What is the point? If I knew what Gaia was afraid of, I could find her more easily.”

“I don’t think so, Falco.”

The girl continued plying me with wine, but I knew that old trick. Perhaps she sensed it, because she took the goblet from me and had a drink herself.

I grabbed the goblet back, then set it down smartly on its tray. “ Concentrate! I thought Gaia might have been troubled by the evil ways of nasty ‘Uncle Tiberius.’ Did she mention him?”

“Oh, he was a filthy article,” Constantia admitted immediately.

“Then whyever would a retired Vestal like Terentia Paulla marry him?”

“Because he was rich?”

“A rich bastard.”

“He fooled Terentia into believing that he wanted her.”

“He was rich and she was foolish?”

“You are not going to give up?”

“No.”

“All right.” She had decided to give me something. It might not be everything (few women do that on a first acquaintance, after all; least of all sworn virgins). “Terentia married him,” said Constantia, “because he told her she was the one he had always really wanted. She was thrilled. She took him out of misplaced flattery, and a little spite perhaps-because he was the lover that her married sister had flaunted at her for years.”

XLIV

I FOLDED MY arms and stretched out my boots, crossing my ankles. I was now feeling desperately tired.

What would this have meant to Gaia? Yet more explosions in the family, that was certain. I now understood all too clearly what had been meant when I was told that “Uncle Tiberius” had been an “old friend” of the family.

I knew that Terentia Paulla had retired as a Vestal about eighteen months ago. She had been married for just under a year. This was June. Her sister, the ex-Flamen had said, had died in July last year. “The Vestal’s wedding and the Flaminica’s death must have virtually coincided.”

“Probably so.” I sensed that Constantia now wanted to close up. Her bright eyes were watching me. I could live with that, if she liked the novelty of gazing at a handsome dog with tousled curls and an endearing grin-not to mention, of course, the faintly etched brow crease that hinted at my thoughtful, sensitive side.

She made a decent picture herself. She might look severe when she was attired in her religious robes, but she had regular features lit with obvious intelligence; off duty, she was a very pretty girl. As a centurion’s daughter or a tribune’s wife, she would have been the toast of any legion, and an inevitable source of problems among the men.

Thankfully, pretty girls present no problem to me.

“The Flaminica-Statilia Paulla, wasn’t that her name?-died very suddenly, I heard. Do you happen to know what caused it?”

“Apart from fury at her sister’s announcement of her marriage?” Constantia bit her lip. “I do know, actually. She had a tumor. She had confided in the Chief Vestal-probably not just to share the tragedy, but to annoy her sister, who was not being made a confidante.”

“Had everyone in the family known about the Flaminica’s long affair?”

“I should think so. Not little Gaia.”

“Does that mean even the Flamen knew?”

“It had always been accepted tacitly. Theirs was a marriage in form only.”

“He must have had feelings on the subject. When he talked about his wife was the only time I saw any signs of animation.”

“That,” said Constantia coldly, “is simply because he blames his wife for dying and robbing him of his position.”

“You are very hard.” She made no reply. “Was Gaia fond of her grandmother?”

“You mean, did the Flaminica’s death upset her? I think the child was closer to Terentia. Terentia has made a big pet of Gaia. I gather she has even talked of making Gaia her heir.”

“What about Laelius Scaurus? I thought he was Terentia’s favorite?”

“Yes,” said Constantia, playing with one of her ringlets. “But he remains in his father’s paternal control, so he cannot hold property.”

“What’s the difference?”

“None, as things are. Gaia is also in the guardianship of her grandfather. But if Gaia were to become a Vestal Virgin, once she came to the House of the Vestals she-unlike her other relations-would be entitled to her own property. She could also make a will.”

This was intriguing. “So then if Terentia died, and Gaia inherited, the loot would belong to her immediately and might eventually be left by her outside the family-whereas if Gaia fails to become a Vestal, anything Terentia leaves either to Gaia or her father will be controlled by Laelius Numentinus from the moment of probate.”