Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die

'What about you, Indus?' Helena slipped in. 'Are you on the lookout for a wealthy new wife, or looking over your shoulder for some over-officious auditor?' She made it humorous. Indus took it that way – apparently.

'Oh I like to be a man of mystery, dear lady.'

'We all think he is a runaway bigamist!' giggled Helvia. So the rumours about Indus were openly mentioned – and he liked to let those rumours hover.

'You know the old maxim; never confess – and you'll never regret.'

'Deny and you'll get a black eye!' I retaliated.

After a few moments' silence, Helena sat up slightly. 'Statianus and Aelianus are missing; so is someone else,' she said. 'We were told you had a third man travelling by himself – whom nobody has mentioned at all. Wasn't there a Turcianus Opimus in your group? Our information is that he says this is 'his last chance to see the world.'

The silence lingered.

'Has nobody told you?' Helvia seemed wobbly.

The two men glanced at each other. It was rather ominous. Indus puffed out his cheeks, blew air awkwardly, then said nothing. Helvia by now was twisting her transparent stole between both hands, apparently distressed. We looked to Marinus, who always had too much to say, and screwed out of him the fatal words. Turcianus has died.'

Helena drew herself up, then slowly let out a breath. 'I hope,' she said softly, 'you are not going to tell us there was anything unnatural about his death?'

'Oh no,' Helvia assured her, a little giddily. 'We just are – well, I can see that news would have been rather a shock, after you came here to investigate Valeria. It's just that for all of us – well, of course, we really hardly knew the man.

'He was ill.' I made it a statement.

Helvia calmed down. 'Well, yes he was. Very seriously, it turned out. But none of us had realised.'

Helena was still wary, thinking that this might turn out to be yet another untoward death. 'Was it true then, when he said he was travelling while he could – he knew that he had very little time left?'

'Apparently so,' Marinus replied. 'Without being cynical – ' Which we gathered he always was. 'I doubt whether Phineus would have accepted Opimus on the tour, had he been aware of the true situation.'

'So much trouble…' Helena responded. 'Having to repatriate the ashes. So bad for his reputation, sending clients home in funeral urns.'

'The rate this tour is going,' Marinus quipped, 'Phineus will end up taking more urns back than people!'

'Oh Marinus!' Helvia reproved him. She turned to Helena and confided the story. 'Opimus seemed such a nice man. But he was very ill, we discovered, and he badly wanted to go to Epidaurus – where the Temple of Aesculapius is, you know.'

'I didn't know Epidaurus was on your itinerary,' I said.

'No, it wasn't originally. But we are doing Tracks and Temples, after all, and Epidaurus has a very famous temple with a fascinating history. In fact there is even a stadium.'

'And a good theatre?'

'An astonishing theatre. When we found out how Opimus was suffering, we all took a vote. Most of us were happy to go to the medical sanctuary and let him seize his chance for a cure.'

'How did Phineus take this vote for a detour?' I asked. Marinus and Indus laughed heartily. 'I see! Still, you are the clients, so you persuaded him.'

'It was no loss to bloody Phineus!' Marinus said crisply. 'We pay for it if we want a new itinerary.'

'And this was after Olympia?'

'Yes,' said Helvia. 'We were all feeling shaken by Valeria's death, and perhaps a little kinder towards our fellow humans. When Opimus revealed how ill he was, we all felt it very deeply. You know, I think the shock of what happened to Valeria contributed to his decline; while we were at Olympia he deteriorated rapidly.'

'You were on good terms with him?'

Helvia blushed demurely. I imagined her disappointment if she had lined up Opimus as a possible new husband, only to lose him after she had spent much effort making friends.

Helena drew on her usual fund of knowledge. 'Is Epidaurus where people sleep in a cell near the temple, and hope for a dream that night, which will produce a cure?'

'Yes. It is a wonderful site,' said Helvia. 'It is set in a marvellous grove, all very spacious, with many facilities, some medical and some where people obtain help for mind and body purely by rest and relaxation. For the sick, the centre contains the Temple of Aesculapius, and not far away a huge building called the dormitory. There you sleep for a night, among tame snakes and dogs who are sacred to Aesculapius. They wander around, and some people dream they are licked by the creatures, which leads to them being healed.'

The sacred dogs must be more fragrant than Nux, then. (Nux had been left with Albia that afternoon.) 'So what happened?' I asked.

'One or two of us had little ailments we wouldn't mind alleviating, so we went with Opimus and slept in the dormitory that night.' Helvia looked slightly disapproving – the classic face of a tourist who knows she has been cheated, but who paid good money for the experience and still wants to believe. 'It did not help my rheumatism. None of us seem very much better since then, I'm afraid to say…'

'Somebody must get well. There are tablets hung up everywhere, praising the dream cures,' Marinus told us, in his sceptical tone. 'Lepidus dreamed that a snake licked his arse and with the assistance of the god he woke up absolutely cured of his piles… Of course they don't say Lepidus had actually gone there with a goitre on his neck! Then people make pottery offerings in the form of the limb or organ that Aesculapius mended – lots of little wombs and -'

'Feet? asked Helena adroitly.

'Feet – and hands and ears,' Indus assured her, with a smile.

Marinus leaned forward. 'I have all the luck. I was singled out for a special honour. I got bitten by a sacred dog!' He pulled back a bandage on the leg he had previously put up on the seat to ease it. We inspected the bite.

'No doubt they told you he was just being friendly, and nothing like it had ever happened at the sanctuary before?' Marinus stared at me suspiciously, as if he thought I might be a dog-owner. 'Seems to be healing, Marinus.' I grinned.

'Yes, I tell myself a friendly snake must have come along afterwards and licked it better.'

'Did you dream?' asked Helena, mock serious.

'Not a thing. I never do. As for Turcianus Opimus, whatever he dreamed turned into his nightmare, poor fellow.'

'Well?' prompted Helena. Marinus shook his head, looking sombre, while Indus sighed and sank into himself.

The widow was made of stouter stuff. It was left to her to tell us. 'He passed away peacefully during the night. Oh don't worry!' Helvia assured us quickly. 'He had the best medical attention in the world. After all, the healers at Epidaurus go back in a direct line to the teachings of Aesculapius, the very founder of medicine. The one thing you can be certain of is that Turcianus Opimus would have died wherever he was. It was unavoidable and absolutely natural.'

Oh really? Doing my job for twelve years had tainted my ability to trust. Simple statements about 'unavoidable' happenings now sounded unreliable. Any reference to a 'natural' death immediately aroused suspicions.

Helena looked good for more questions, but I was flagging. Since we had now tackled everyone who came to the courtyard for lunch, we packed up and returned to our own lodgings.

With a recommendation from a quaestor, you might suppose this travel lodge would rank with the best in Corinth. Any visitors of note arriving at a provincial capital go straight to the governor's palace, in the hope of being offered luxurious rooms there. Lesser mortals will more likely be told that a great train of ex-consuls has just arrived unexpectedly – though then they should be sent to hotels where at least the bedbugs have been to charm school and the landlord speaks Latin.