Lindsey Davis - Saturnalia

Drusilla gave me a nasty look. 'There was nothing wrong with him, if that is what you are implying! He was only twenty-five and perfectly normal, though not strong. He would have been a wonderful husband and father; all that has been taken away from him.' I won't say she cried. It would have spoiled her careful face makeup. Besides, I was a lout and she was too proud to give way.

I wished I had brought Helena Justina for this. Even the old bag in black would have been impressed by her.

'This is bound to be painful, but I need to ask about how you found your brother's head, please.' Drusilla Gratiana whimpered and looked faint. Phryne shuddered, making a big show of it. 'Was there any particular reason why you went into the atrium, or were you just passing through normally on your way somewhere?' With a struggle, Drusilla gave a slight nod that indicated the latter. 'I'm sorry. This is unacceptably hard for you. I won't ask you any more.'

I was only being amenable because my interview was ended anyway: the damned doctor had turned up. I knew who he was from the stuffed satchel of medicaments, the piqued frown, and the bustling manner that told his patients they were being charged by the minute by an exceptionally busy specialist who was much in demand.

'Who is this low fellow?'

'The name is Falco. Didius Falco.'

'You look like a slave.'

His arrogance smelt like a fisherman's fart, but I was not in the mood for nit-picking.

Drusilla Gratiana was already stretching out on a couch. There were some female invalids with whom I would happily play doctors and nurses. In this case, I left.

Some informers get to deal with buxom young female slaves who carry the titbit trays and yearn to make free with male visitors. My name is Didius Falco, and I end up with implacable old freedwomen: Cleander had shooed her out, making it plain that however intimate she was with Drusilla, he would not accept an underling at his consultation.

I now needed to be shown where the torso was found and hoped to be led there by the house steward-but once she had been turfed out of the consultation, Phryne took over supervising me.

'What's wrong with your mistress?' I enquired as we walked. 'She suffers with her nerves.'

'And that was her doctor. What's his name again?'

'Cleander.' Phryne disliked him. In view of his snooty attitude towards her, it was understandable.

'He's a Greek?'

'He's a Hippocratic pneumatist.'

Sounded like he was a charlatan. 'And does he attend the whole family? I thought Quadrumatus Labeo sees Pylaemenes?'

'Pylaemenes is his dream therapist. His doctor is Aedemon. He is an Egyptian,' said Phryne, who had grasped my line of questioning. 'An Alexandrian empiricist.' Another quack.

'Drusilla Gratiana said her brother was not strong. Who looked after him?'

'Mastarna. Etruscan. A dogmatist.'

As she grew more terse, I took the hint and kept quiet until we came to a prettily decorated salon. It must have been thoroughly cleaned up; there was no sign now of the reported pools of blood. Gratianus Scaeva had been found on a reading couch; it had since been replaced with a different one. There were goat-footed marble side tables, display cabinets with a selection of bronze miniatures, lampstands, a couple of cedarwood scroll boxes, rugs, cushions, a hot wine dispenser, pens and ink, and in short, more pieces of furniture and knick-knacks than my mother had in her whole house-but no clues.

We walked back to the atrium, where I said, 'I did not want to upset your mistress, but I have another question. Was anything found in the water, other than her brother's head? Were there any weapons or pieces of treasure, for instance?'

Phryne looked at me wide-eyed. 'No! Should there have been?' I was taken aback by her reaction, but I had probably startled her with my reference to barbarian rites.

At my request she then walked me to the suite Veleda had occupied. This was a very large villa. The Quadrumati were not sharing much of their domestic life with their house guest. They had kept Veleda so far away from the rest of them she could have been in a different dwelling.

Her quarters had been comfortable. A couple of rooms, furnished in the same basic style as the rest of the house, though lighter on luxuries. She and Ganna had shared a bedroom, each with her own well-furnished bed. They ate in a small private dining room. A reception room with seating gave on to an enclosed courtyard when they wanted fresh air. They had been attended by a slave, on a daily rota to avoid any danger of suborning. When the family were not using their musicians and poetry readers, these had been sent along to provide entertainment-though Drusilla Gratiana had never allowed the priestess use of her troupe of dwarfs.

Life would have been lonely but tolerable. As imprisonment for a condemned person, this was more than humane. But once Veleda heard of her intended fate, her isolation would have given her too much scope for brooding.

'Veleda was unwell, I hear. What was wrong with her, Phryne?' The malevolent retainer cackled. 'We never found out. Feigning, probably.'

'Did any of the family medicos take a look at her?'

'Certainly not!' Phryne was outraged at the suggestion that a physician who had touched one of her sacred charges should finger the sickly barbarian.

'So she was left to make the best of it?'

'By no means, Falco. When she started complaining-' The freedwoman emphasised her belief that Veleda was a self-pitying malingerer-'Drusilla Gratiana kindly arranged for Zosime, from the sanctuary of AEsculapius, to attend her. My mistress even paid for it!'

So these noble folk had had three personal doctors, plus a dream therapist, on call and visiting daily-all of whom could presumably be relied on for confidentiality-yet for Veleda they brought in a completely different person, an outsider, from a charitable shrine that took care of dying slaves.

'Zosime is female? So… Women's troubles?'

'Pah! Headaches!' Phryne snorted, with a sneer that would have shattered glass.

I had seen enough, and scoffed at enough, to keep my head reeling as I stomped home.

On the way I did a check: I went straight up the Via Aurelia to Tiber Island, where at the shrine I asked to see Zosime. She was out on calls, and nobody was sure when she was likely to return.

'What's it about, Falco?'

'I'd rather not say.'

This search would be tricky. Since Veleda's presence in Rome was a state secret, and her absconding was such an embarrassment, I would have to pretend she did not exist. It would be awkward. Still, I like a challenge.

When I played coy, the receptionist at the Temple of AEsculapius merely nodded. The shrine attendants accepted any story; they were used to hard-hearted citizens dragging in worn-out old slaves they could not be bothered to feed any more, and pretending they just found these sorry specimens wandering in the street. No sick slave was turned away. This was the only truly charitable temple in Rome, the only hospital. Treatment was free; the temple survived on donations and legacies. Most of their patients arrived only when they were past saving, but even then, after they had been allowed to die as gently as possible, the hospital conducted and paid for a burial. Way back when I was a very poor informer, I used to think that one day they would be doing it for me…

Hey ho. Time for lunch.

I hoofed on over the Fabrician Bridge to the Theatre of Marcellus, then turned down the left bank past the meat market and the corn dole station. By the Temple of Ceres there was a commotion: a posse of

Praetorians were throwing their weight about. Big bullies, they were unmissable in their scarlet cloaks and crested helmets. All of them came with a filthy attitude. This was the result of encouraging long term legionaries, sad men who loved the army too much, to volunteer for special duties. The minute they put on their shiny moulded breastplates and took their personal oath to the Emperor, the Guards were in Elysium. No danger; double pay; a soft life in Rome, instead of being stuck in some dire province-plus the chance to behave like utter bastards every week.