Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

I never worked for the state. I had relatives who had done so in the past, but it was now too dangerous. No dubious practices, bedroom or religious, would be exposed by me to further the emperor's morality campaign and make him look good to the gods. No bearded philosopher who foolishly lectured on historic tyrants would spot me sitting in the back row, scribbling notes that would earn him exile to a very uncomfortable island. No silly woman casting horoscopes need fear me reporting her for prophesying Domitian's death.

Any clairvoyant who was any good at foreseeing knives and poisonings was safe from me. Like everyone else, I would be too interested in knowing exactly when we could hope for a decent coup with a well-organised assassination. I knew what I thought about Domitian, but I hid my opinions.

I had nothing to fear from the Guards in theory, yet, like anyone, when I heard them coming I kept out of their way. I did not want a bad-tempered officer to decide any lone woman on the streets after dark must be a whore. I would be at his mercy. Pleading that you have just "come from a funeral" sounds a lame excuse. So I stood carefully in a dark shop doorway while they marched by.

Once again, as I waited, I became depressed. I had been unsettled by Nepos admitting he had discussed me and my work with the aedile. That could lead to bother. And the issue of Salvidia's death gnawed disturbingly. You could say that compared with the problems some brave opponent of the emperor was about to have this night when the Guards arrived at his home, the unexplained death of a middle-aged woman who probably suffered from a bad heart hardly mattered. But that magistrate Manlius Faustus, the supposedly intelligent man Metellus Nepos had taken a shine to, had obviously instructed Nepos to stop talking to me-Nepos, with whom I had previously enjoyed a frank professional relationship. I hated that: the impression that my client and an official had entered some male compact, from which they were high-handedly excluding me.

In these dark streets, full of the menace that trailed behind the Praetorians, I started to think all sorts of things. After they had gone, people kept in their homes, with shutters drawn. I heard neither music nor laughter nearby. Stillness descended. In this unusual, uneasy quietness, an insidious cover-up of strange crimes began to seem almost plausible.

I cursed Nepos again-but this time my irritation was practical. I remembered that I had forgotten to ask him to pay my fees as he had promised.

I had no energy that night to work myself into a frazzle. I was too tired and had had little to eat all day; it was easier to ignore my fretful thoughts. It would not be the first time that work I had already completed had to be written off. Losses splattered my ledger as if some damaging weevil had got in and left little droppings all over the scroll.

Next morning I devoted time to the ordinary things a girl has to do. I went through my apartment gathering laundry, bundled it neatly, and hauled the bundle to be washed. People think an informer's life is all exposing frauds in court and beating up stubborn witnesses, but you need clean sheets and tunics. Clients are put off by bad hygiene. Anyway, I hate itching.

I often ate breakfast at a bar called the Stargazer, but on days when I attended to chores I just munched whatever stale bread roll I found at home. I took one out with me when I went to the laundry. I chewed slowly; it was so old and hard, I risked breaking a tooth.

I picked up the previous bundle and went straight to Prisca's bath house, a civilised all-female establishment, where I was able to gain admittance even when they were closed. None of them are supposed to open in the morning, but I was a regular and welcome to use either the gymnasium or the library at any hour. Prisca herself let me in, with one of her pleasant greetings: "I see your hairdresser's on strike again! And if you don't mind me mentioning this, Flavia Albia, it could be time now to start tucking yourself up in a bustband."

What is it about baths that makes people think they have a right to be insulting?

She just wanted to sell me a band. There was nothing wrong with my figure, any man would agree. I was shorter than I might have been if I had had a better childhood, but by the time my chest grew, I had been adopted by the Didii and given a decent diet. Physically, I developed late, but enough. I seemed to be still growing well into my twenties. Fully mature now, I kept trim; everything was in the right place, whatever Prisca implied.

I tossed my quadrans onto the money bowl, made a gesture that could pass for friendly if Prisca was exceedingly short-sighted, then with her cackling after me I barged through into the changing room, hurled off what I was wearing, grabbed a modesty towel and headed for the main facilities.

The bath suite was on the right; it was a simple row of tepid room, steam room and cold room with a plunge bath. On the left, a small court opened out with colonnades where people could relax sensibly or work themselves into a froth with exercise. A couple of hard-bitten women dressed in combat gear were huffing about with fancy little bucklers and wooden swords, making themselves a spectacle. I don't object to female gladiators, but if such hopefuls must adopt butch sports I expect them to have enough self-respect to fight decently; these were hopeless. I refused to gawp because I figured that was what the silly madams wanted.

Prisca had followed me. "You should be able to find a bit of warmish water left from last night. Why don't you come at a sensible hour? Do you want someone to scrape you down?"

"I'll manage."

This was hard on the girls who tried to earn a few coppers wielding a strigil for customers who could not drag off their own bathing oil, but Prisca had known me long enough; I don't know why she asked. I always brought my personal strigil, a nicely curved, comfortable bone one, and at the moment I was using up a little flask of plain almond oil I had had from one of my sisters last Saturnalia.

Prisca made no money from merchandise with me. But she knew I was no trouble and if she kept on my good side, I would keep paying the entrance fee. She was a good businesswoman.

She sat down on the ledge in the steam room with me; when things were quiet she liked a chat. I put up with it because she could be a useful source of gossip.

She was a sparely built woman in her late middle years, always in a long sleeveless tunic, permanently damp and clinging, and with rope-soled toe-post sandals. I had only ever seen her in the same jewellery: a gold chain with a greenish tinge and heavy hoop earrings. Despite regular attempts to discover her background, I still had no idea how she came to be running this bathhouse. It would not surprise me to find she had jumped some male owner, whether her husband or someone unrelated, holding his head under the water in the plunge pool until she drowned him, then she just quietly took over. It was her decision to make it women-only. Most baths had sessions for both sexes, kept separate by different times.

Although Prisca remained fully clothed, I did not object to her watching me at my ablutions. She saw enough bodies to be indifferent. My sisters always giggled about this place, claiming it was a club for lesbians. They were fourteen and sixteen, so found that idea dangerous and thrilling. In fact most other customers were working women, some not even prostitutes, but honestly employed as freelance embroiderers, midwives or fish-scalers. Mothers of schoolchildren came here for some peace and quiet. Worn old aunties muttered over their oil flasks, trying to use as little as possible to save money. Any of these could possibly belong to the Grecian sisterhood, or flirt with it, but at Prisca's there was no higher proportion than in ordinary society, and they were no more visible.