III

Over breakfast, Bethesda and Diana demanded to know everything. I tried to soften my description of Clodius's corpse in deference to their appetites, but they insisted on all the gruesome details. The wrangling of the politicians was of less interest to them, but they listened attentively to my impressions of the famous house and its furnishings, and they were especially curious about Clodia.

"Can it really be four years since the trial of Marcus Caelius?" Bethesda blew gently on a spoonful of hot farina.

"Almost."

"And to think we haven't had a glimpse of Clodia in all that time."

"Not surprising, really; we hardly move in the same exalted circles. But I don't think anyone's seen much of her. The trial took something out of her. She seemed a changed woman to me."

"Really? It sounds like she made quite a show of inviting you into the very heart of her brother's grand house, as if she were doing you a great favour, making you feel privileged and special. She wants something."

"Really, Bethesda, the woman was distraught."

"Was she?"

"I told you, she could hardly keep from weeping." "To weep is one thing. To be distraught is another." "I don't follow you."

"No?" Bethesda sat back from the table. "Be careful of the farina, Diana. You'll burn your tongue."

Diana nodded absently and gulped down a heaping spoonful "What do you mean, Bethesda? About Clodia?"

"Well, I have no doubt that she was very upset about her brother's death. We all know how close they were, or at least the way people talked about them. And such a bloody death, from the way you describe his body. Awful!" She stirred her farina. Little puffs of steam rose from the bowl.

"But?"

Diana cleared her throat. "I think that what Mother is trying to

say is-".

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Bethesda looked at Diana and they nodded in unison. "Her litter, her bodyguard -"

"And using the main entrance. Yes." Diana pursed her lips sagely.

"What in Hades are the two of you talking about?"

"Well -" Bethesda tried another spoonful of farina and finally deemed it cool enough. "From your description, it seems that there's the main entrance to the house, and also the secluded little side door that you took."

"Yes…"

"And they both end up in the same place." "Yes, in the main foyer."

"Well, I can't speak for Clodia, but if I were distraught, I should have no stomach for facing a huge crowd. I'd want to avoid that if I possibly could. And Clodia could have done so, quite easily, simply by entering through that side door. She could have avoided the crowd completely. Am I right? Her litter could have deposited her and Metella and her nephew Appius at the foot of the steps, and they could have gone up to the landing and into the house without anyone even knowing they'd arrived."

"I suppose so…"

Diana picked up the thread from her mother. "Instead, she went through the thick of the crowd in that huge litter – the one with the red and white stripes that everyone knows is hers – with a veritable army of big redheaded gladiators."

Bethesda nodded. "Where everyone would be sure to notice her arrival."

"And talk about it long afterwards," said Diana. "What is your point?" I said, looking back and forth between them.

"Well, Papa, only that grief was not the only thing on Clodia's mind."

"Exactly," said Bethesda. "Making an entrance – that was the point."

"Oh, really!" I shook my head. "If you'd been there, if you'd felt the mood of the place, the despair, the anguish -"

"All the better to heighten the drama," said Bethesda. "I don't doubt Clodia's grief But you see, she must have considered the circumstances ahead of time. She realized that she wouldn't be allowed to appear publicly alongside her brother's body when it was shown to the crowd. That privilege was reserved for Fulvia."

"So Clodia made an impression in the only way she could – by making a grand entrance," said Diana.

"I see. You're saying she wanted to upstage her sister-in-law."

"Not at all." Bethesda frowned at my obtuseness. "She only wanted what was hers."

"To claim the portion of public grief that she feels belongs to her," Diana explained.

"I see," I said, not at all certain that I did. "Well, speaking of doing things for show, of course I was quite struck by the inconsistency of Fulvia's behaviour -"

"Inconsistency?" said Bethesda.

"What do you mean, Papa?"

"I told you how stiff she was in the inner room, how she showed virtually no emotion, even when she put Clodia in her place about cleaning the body. And then her hysterical shrieking in front of all those people when they showed Clodius to the mob!"

"But where's the inconsistency, Papa?" Diana looked at me curiously, as did her mother. I almost thought they were making fun of me.

"It seems to me that a woman should grieve in private and show restraint in public, not – the other way around," I said.

Bethesda and Diana looked at each other and wrinkled their brows. "What would be the point of that?" said Bethesda.

"It's not a matter of having a point -"

"Husband!" Bethesda was shaking her head. "Of course Fulvia didn't want to show her grief to you, a stranger, in the intimacy of her home, and especially not in front of Clodia. She comported herself with dignity to make her mother proud, to show her little daughter how to be strong, to confound her weeping sister-in-law. And for the sake of her husband as well, since you Romans believe that the lemur of a dead man may linger for a while in the vicinity of its vacant corpse. So for you she put on her most dignified manner.

But the crowd outside, that was a different matter. Fulvia wanted to stir them up, as much as she could, just as her husband had stirred them up so many times before. She could hardly do that by standing next to his bloody corpse and behaving like a statue, could she?"

"Then you think her display of public grief was calculated and disingenuous?"

"Calculated, most certainly. But disingenuous? Not at all. She simply chose the most suitable time and place to release the grief that was inside her all along."

I shook my head. "I'm not sure you're making sense. I'd rather try to figure out what sort of schemes the politicians in the anteroom were up to."

Bethesda and Diana shrugged in unison to show that the subject bored them. "Politicians are usually too obvious to be very interesting," said Bethesda. "Of course, it may be that I've misjudged Clodia and Fulvia. I wasn't there to see with my own eyes. I can only go by what you've told me."

"Am I such an unreliable observer?" I raised an eyebrow. "Men do call me the Finder, you know."

"The thing is," said Bethesda, oblivious to my point, "that one never quite knows what some people are really up to. Especially with a woman as complicated as Clodia, or Fulvia. How does one ever know what she really thinks, really feels? What she really wants?" Bethesda exchanged a thoughtful look with Diana. Simultaneously they lifted spoonfuls of porridge to their lips, then abruptly lowered them as Belbo came into the room.

For many years the straw-haired giant of a fellow had been my private bodyguard, and had saved my life on more than one occasion. He was still as strong as an ox, but as lumbering as one, too; as loyal as a hound, but no longer fit for the chase. I still entrusted my life to him on a daily basis -1 let him shave my neck – but I couldn't rely on him to protect me from daggers in the Forum. What does one do with a loyal bodyguard who has outlasted his usefulness? Belbo could read only a little and do only the most rudimentary sums. He had no special skills at carpentry or gardening. Aside from performing an occasional feat of prodigious strength – toting a heavy sack of grain or lifting a massive wardrobe single-handed – he served me well enough as a doorkeeper, a job which chiefly required him to sit in a warm patch of sunlight in the atrium for most of the day. Lethargy suited his bovine nature and enhanced that equable temperament which strangers often mistook for stupidity. Belbo's wits might be slow, but they were not dim. It was his way to smile at a joke after everyone else finished laughing. He seldom grew angry, even when provoked. He even more rarely showed fear. As he stepped into the dining room, however, his oxlike eyes were wide with alarm. "Belbo, what's wrong?"