Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

'Oh! Can we see the well?' she demanded excitedly. He gestured to the yard door, pushed a jug at her, and left us to our own devices.

Helena went out to peer quickly down the well, then came back to our table with the jug.

'Cups, darling?' I teased, playing to a non-existent audience, but the landlord had brought them, with over-obvious efficiency. 'Thanks, legate!' I poured and tipped a cup to him. He gave me a brusque nod. 'Sorry,' I murmured sympathetically. 'You must be sick of sightseers.'

He made no comment, only sucked a blackened tooth. He went back to stand in silence among his amphorae in a corner, staring at us. I would normally have tried chatting with other customers – but there were none. And it was impossible to talk to Helena while the man was listening.

Now we were stuck. Stuck in a dark drinking hole that lacked atmosphere: a small square room with a couple of seats, about three shapes of wine flagon, no snacks evident, and a man serving who could crack marble with his stare. Once again, I wondered why ever Verovolcus, a happy soul who was oppressively convivial, would have come here. The woman this morning had sworn nobody knew who he was or remembered him. But if tonight's effort represented normal trade, it would be impossible to forget. The landlord must have had time to count the stitches on Verovolcus's tunic braid.

He would certainly remember me, right down to the fact that I had forty-seven hairs in my left eyebrow. Uncomfortable, we drank up and prepared to leave.

With nothing to lose, as I paid him I bantered, 'The Shower of Gold – I wish I had Zeus popping in at the window in a heap of cash! He could sleep with anyone he liked.' The landlord looked bemused. 'You named your winery after a myth,' I pointed out.

'It was called that when I came here,' he snarled.

As we reached the doorway, people emerged from a dark passage that seemed to lead upstairs. One was a man who slipped straight out past me, adjusting his belt-buckle in a way that was all too recognisable. He must be desperate; his companion was the bar-room waitress. She was as ugly as I remembered. The squat little monster chinked a couple of coins into the petty cash bowl and the landlord hardly looked up.

Servicing customers could be part of a waitress' duties, but usually the girls looked better. Not good, but better. Sometimes quite a lot better.

She had seen me. 'My girlfriend wanted to see the crime scene,' I told her apologetically.

'We're going to charge for tickets,' snapped the waitress. To the landlord, she added unpleasantly, 'He was here with the nobs this morning. Has he been asking more questions?' There was no need to warn him; he knew how to refuse to co-operate. She rounded on me again. 'We told you what we know, and it's nothing. Don't come again – and don't bother sending your pals.'

'What pals? I sent nobody.'

Both waitress and landlord were now a little too truculent. We took the hint and left.

'Was that a waste of time, Marcus?' Helena asked demurely.

'I don't know.'

Probably.

'So what shall we do now?'

'Use a trick of the trade.'

'Like what?' asked Helena.

'When you learn nothing in the first wine bar, try another one.'

Finding another was difficult. As a kindness to my lady I tried working back uphill, towards what passed for better parts of town. No luck. 'Better' was a misnomer anyway.

We were forced to head back down towards the river, at one point even emerging on to a planked wharf. Nothing was moving on the water; we were right by a ferry landing point, yet it seemed a lonely spot. We retreated hastily. Up the next steep entry we hit a row of shops. Most seemed to sell either pottery or olive oil, the oil in the great round-bottomed Spanish amphorae Helena and I knew well from a trip we had made to Baetica. Wine seemed a scarcer commodity on public sale, but there was evidence that everyone in Londinium had access to the fine golden oil from Corduba and Hispalis. If everyone had it, presumably the stuff was sold at a reasonable price. Then from a street corner we spotted a small brown-tinged bay tree; half its leaves had been shredded by moths and its lead shoot was broken, but it seemed to serve the same advertising purpose as greenery outside any foodshop in the Mediterranean.

As we arrived, a waiter or the proprietor stepped out of doors and spoke to a bundle who was scavenging on his frontage. He was not abusive, but she scuttled off. I took it as a good sign that he repelled vagrants. We went inside.

Warmth hit us: bodies and lamps. It was much bigger and better lit than our first venue. A wine list had been chalked up on a wall, though there was nothing I recognised. The man who served us made no reference to the list, just offered red or white, with the extra option of beer. Helena, still in character, thought it would be fun to try British beer. Petro and I had done that in our youth; I asked for red. I wanted a water jug as well. With a head still sore from this afternoon, I was going gently. The waiter managed not to sneer. Roman habits were clearly not new to him.

This time we sat quiet, relaxed as we waited for our drinks. We gazed around. Both waiters here were thin, slight, hollow-cheeked, hardworking types with balding crowns, glossy black face hair and lugubrious eyes. They did not look British, more likely from Spain or the East. So here was another establishment staffed by migrants. Who knows how many miles they had travelled, humping their possessions, their hopes and their past history, to end up running a cheap bar that lay on the other side of everywhere. Their customers represented a shifting population too. Some were traders by their appearance: tanned, competent businessmen locked in conversations in twos and threes. None looked like Britons. The locals skulked at home. Places of entertainment in this town were catering for outsiders. As long as that continued, the province could hardly be civilised. It would just be a trading post.

Nearest to us was a man who reminded me of Silvanus' claim that Londinium was attracting oddballs. He was wrapped in many layers, with old rope for a belt around coarse trews, his skin ingrained with dirt, his hair lank and straggly.

'Want a doggie?' he demanded, as Helena made the mistake of watching him feed titbits to a lean cur at his feet. The dog looked disgusting and whined unhappily.

'No, we have one already, thanks.' I was relieved that we had locked Nux in the bedroom before we came out. Pupped in an alley, Nux had moved up in the world when she adopted me, but she still liked making playmates of mongrels with bad characters.

'This boy's very smart.'

'No, really. Ours is already a handful.'

He dragged his stool nearer, scraping it sideways on two legs. A leech, who had found new victims. 'British dogs are magic,' this dire parasite claimed proudly. Was he British, or just loyal to the commodity he hawked? Unlike other customers here, I thought he could be genuine. Which poor tribe did he belong to? Was he some unwanted lag kicked out of the enclosure by the Trinovantes, or a reprobate shoved off a hillfort by fastidious Dubonni? In any culture, he would be the long-lost grisly uncle, the one everybody dreads. At Saturnalia, or the tribes' equivalent, they no doubt spoke of him and shuddered, looking quickly over their shoulders in case he came limping home up the trail sucking grass in the huge gap between those awful teeth…

'I sell as many as I can get, easy. Marvels. If you, fine lady, bought one of these -' A clawlike hand crept into the neck of his lowest undertunic, then scratched slowly. The dog at his feet, raddled with sarcoptic mange, joined in. Most of the fur was gone from its haunches; you could see every rib. For both of them the scratching was unconscious and continual. 'I guarantee you'd get your money back four or five times over, selling it again in Rome or some big place.'