Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

'That's wonderful. Still, no thank you.'

He paused. Then tried again gamely. 'He'll be perfect if your husband hunts.'

'No, he doesn't hunt, I'm afraid.'

'Sure?' She was sure. So was I, damn it. A city boy, I would rather go to the races any day.

The filthy salesman nodded at me secretly. I was being blamed for Helena's resistance. 'Bit of a tight-arse, is he?'

Helena smiled at me, considering. I smiled back. Then she told her new friend. 'Maybe. But I love him. He thinks he's a man of the streets; don't disillusion him.'

'Illusions!' warbled the dogman loudly. 'We all need illusions, don't we?' Other customers glanced our way, pitied us for being trapped, then buried their snouts in their beakers. 'Cherish your illusions, queenly one – lest the dark gods steal you to Hades unfulfilled!'

He was crazy. On the other hand, he could deal in abstract concepts and multi-syllable definitions. I groaned. Did we have that gruesome icon, a man once wealthy, a man of intellect and background, who had fallen on hard times? Had he and his poetic soul been brought low by inadequacy of character, bad financial luck – or drink?

No, he was low grade; he just liked selling dogs. He thought he would make a fortune passing off his lame, wormy hounds to dumb Romans. He hoped he might even sell one to Helena and me. Tough luck, dog-sharp.

Two men came in. The one in front was short and solid, the other was leaner and kept looking round. They were known to the proprietors. They disappeared with the senior waiter through a curtain to some inner recess. I heard raised voices. A short time afterwards the two men emerged and left, unsmiling, walking rapidly. The waiter came out. He muttered briefly to his companion. Both looked hot and angry.

Most customers failed to notice. It was all quite discreet.

Helena had watched me watching them. 'What do you think that was?'

'Market gardeners selling parsley.'

'Protection rackets? Money-lenders?' Helena thought along the same lines as me. 'Do you think the owner paid them?'

'Difficult to tell.'

'If he did, he did not want to – and he made his feelings known.'

'If he paid up, fruit, those bagmen won't care about his attitude.'

'And if not?'

'Presumably they will be back – to ensure he changes his mind.'

We were speaking in low voices, ignoring the dogman. He knew enough to leave us to our confidential talk. Maybe he listened. It made no difference to me. If there were heavies leaning on shop owners, the sooner the better for them to learn that someone was checking up on them.

The waiters went around the tables, busying themselves. They served the dogman and several others automatically, so those must be regulars. This seemed a place to pick up local atmosphere, so we lingered. I accepted a refill and snacks. Helena was still progressing slowly through her beer; she would not admit to a mistake, though my guess was she did not care for it. The waiter expected her to leave half the beaker, but she would finish. Then she would say thank you very nicely when she left.

Helena Justina might be a senator's daughter, but she was my kind of girl. I grinned and winked at her. She belched modestly.

I leaned back and grabbed olives from a bowl on a table behind me. The titbits may have been communal. I acted as if I assumed so, and got into conversation with the two men sitting there. They were negotiators, shifting supplies north for the army; then they took cattle hides south. The first part was profitable, they told me; the hides only acted as ballast, filling their ships with flies. They had thought about transporting slaves instead, but there were too many problems. I joked that they should go into partnership with the dog trader – at which point the conversation died.

Helena had been watching the scavenger we saw earlier. That whey-faced skinny mite had now sneaked back inside; this time the waiters let her alone. Whenever customers departed, she wafted like a sylph to their table then devoured any food they left. There was rarely drink. One man leaned towards her and asked something; she shook her head. It may have been a sexual approach or he could just have asked if it was raining out of doors.

Nothing much seemed to be happening, so next time our beakers were empty I paid up and we took off. Outside the streets were growing very dark. The temperature was balmy, though nowhere near as hot as Rome would be on an August night. There was no street life, just mosquitoes to smack. They had learned to head into town from the marshes at dusk for a bloody feast. Something had nipped my ankle badly and Helena kept imagining they were dancing in her hair.

Helena took my arm to steady both of us as we walked. It took some time to find another bar to crawl to. In Rome there would be a food shop counter on the street every few yards, and probably an inside drinking den on every block. You would not have to keep stopping to shake pea-grit from your shoes either. Londinium had paved roads, but most of its back alleys were rough under foot. The town was built on gravel and brick earth. There were plenty of tile and brick kilns, and the old wattle and daub huts were being replaced with timber and brick dwellings. But I was yearning to walk on great warm slabs of Travertine.

I needed a pee too.

Not finding a venue that offered hygienic facilities, the issue was sorted in ways you need not know.

'What about me?' grizzled Helena. The perpetual beef of a woman on holiday in a strange town. I was the paterfamilias. My role was to find her somewhere. Like most holiday husbands, I had made my own arrangements and now lost interest. This aspect of the situation was pointed out to me.

'Are you desperate?' They always are. Still, we sorted that too, once she was desperate enough. We found a dark place and I stood on guard.

'That's true love,' she thanked me gratefully.

The next time we ventured into what looked like a wine bar, it turned out to be a brothel. They had a table and two chairs outside, as enticement and camouflage, but once we stepped indoors we knew. We saw little sign of activity, but there was every appearance that business was good. As soon as I spotted the teenage scrubbers at the ready, white faced in their drop-necked frocks and glass bead anklets, we backed out with polite smiles.

The madam did look British. All over the world, this is the first trade to develop when civilisation hits the backward barbarians. Widows, for one, are quick to catch on. Widows and unmarried mothers who have to call themselves widows. This one had a direct manner and tired professional eyes. She had probably serviced soldiery outside Roman forts long before she set up here in the town.

Maybe the house of love gave us ideas. Not long after that, Helena and I stopped on a street intersection, moved close and kissed. It was a long tender kiss, not lustful, but full of enjoyment.

We were still locked together in this friendly fashion when we noticed an odd smell. I realised traces of smoke in the air had been bothering me for a few moments. We broke off, walked on quickly, and found there was some night life in Londinium after all: a bakery was on fire.

In Rome, a crowd would have gathered. In Londinium, only a few curious shadows lurked on the dark fringes of the street. Occasional bursts of flame lit their faces briefly. One overhead window creaked open and a woman's voice laughed, 'Someone's had an accident! The dough dump's copped it… I wondered what to do. There were no vigiles here, ready to whistle for colleagues to start a bucket line; no esparto mats; no siphon engine with a full water tank to dump on the blaze.

The building was well alight. You could see it was a bakery because the frontage doors were open; beyond the red-hot counter, two full-height ovens showed up inside, open-mouthed like ancient gargoyles. The flames were not coming from the ovens, however, but leapt all around the walls. Perhaps a spark in a fuel store had started this.