Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

Albia was skulking nervously. Do not imagine that rescue from brutal prostitution had made the girl grateful. In the part of my life I never talked about, I had been an army scout. During close contact with the enemy, as the tribes were then, I had had a few dealings with the boot-faced element of British society. The don't-know, not-heard of that, never-saw-anything mob were as active here as in the criminal slums below the Esquiline in Rome and being a conquered people gave Britons special rights in unhelpfulness. Routinely, they made life awkward for anyone Roman, often in very subtle ways. Albia had absorbed all that.

'Albia, you and I need to talk.' As I tackled the girl, Helena was shooing away children. They had clustered defensively around their returned friend; I hoped these innocents had no idea of her adventure with the prostitution ring. Nux, convinced as ever that she was the joy of my heart, left Albia's side and climbed all over me. I had made the mistake of sitting down. I was trying to look non-threatening. When the dog saw I was accessible, she jumped straight up on me. A hot tongue busily licked anatomical crannies that might need a wash.

Albia said nothing.

'Now don't look so afraid.' Waste of breath. The girl crouched on a stool, expressionless. 'Stop it, Nux… down, stupid doggie! Albia, the other night -' It felt about two weeks ago, though it was only four days. 'A man was killed. It happened at the Shower of Gold. He was pushed down the well, upside down. He drowned.'

Albia still only gave me the wounded, empty stare of the destitute. Her face seemed whiter than ever, her spirit even more crushed.

'You are safe here,' Helena told her. Nux abandoned me and rushed over to Helena, clambering up on her lap. Helena subdued the dog with the competence she used to control our children. 'Albia, tell Didius Falco if you saw anything that night.'

'No.' Was that saw nothing, or wouldn't tell?

Nux looked from one to another of us, intrigued. 'Were you in the Shower of Gold, or anywhere near it, that night?' I repeated.

'No.' Useless. I was trying to net moonlight.

The more times she denied it, the more I doubted her word. Even if desperate people did not lie, they withheld information. But if they could get away with it, they lied. Truth was power. To keep it gave them a last shred of hope. To pass it on left them utterly exposed.

'Albia!' Even Helena sounded sharp. 'Nobody will harm you if you talk about this. Falco will arrest the men who did it.'

'I was not there.'

Even though Albia was so uncommunicative, I could tell one thing: she was absolutely terrified.

'Well, that was a dead loss.' I tried not to gloat.

'I'm really annoyed with her.' At least Helena did not blame me. 'Albia's a silly girl.'

'She's just scared. She's been scared all her life.'

'Well, haven't we all!' From Helena Justina that was a shock. I stared. She pretended she had not said it.

'Now can I go out to play?' I whined.

'Things to do, Marcus.'

'What things, beloved?'

'Have a look at the lawyer, say.'

'Your friend Popillius?' I hoped in vain for praise that I remembered his name.

'I don't feel friendly towards him, and he's not mine.'

'Good. I can put up with a lot,' I joked, 'but if you run off with a legal man, that's it, my girl!'

'Really?' she demanded in a light tone.

'Oh yes.' I frowned. 'Dearest, you know that I cannot stand lawyers.'

The day was looking up. Popillius was presumably slick – aren't they all in their business references? – but I found him in the act of being fleeced.

Helena had to let me out to conduct this next interview. She came with me, however. I waited patiently while she first fed Favonia; it gave me a chance to make snooty remarks about wishing my daughters to lead a quiet domestic life, not to be dragged out to unsuitable venues as they were last night. That enabled Helena to say she wished I could set them a good example then. Thus sniping, though cheerfully, we steamed off in a morning that was still good and hot, to a small rented house where the lawyer had set up in business. Despite a flamboyant chalked sign outside which promised the best prosecutions north of the Alps and tactful, cheap defence speeches, clients had yet to take advantage of the services he offered. I looked for a no-win, no-fee notice but of course failed to find it.

Popillius sat sunbathing in a courtyard, where he waited for all those people who wanted outrageous compensation for wrongs. While at a loose end, he had been found by a British entrepreneur. A shy-looking hopeful had wandered in from the street. He had tufty hair and wide-apart short legs, and had set out a big flat tray of carved jet jewellery and trifles.

There were more of these jet-sellers than fleas on a cat; there always had been. In reality the soldiers in the legions, wanting presents for their girlfriends, snapped up the best quality stuff while they were up on the frontier. In most parts of southern Britain there was as much chance of buying genuine sea-washed black stuff from Brigantia as of finding real turquoise scarabs beside the Pyramids in Alexandria.

I liked this seller's patter. He owned up that there was fakery in the trade. His cheeky premise was that the best fakes were so good it was worth buying them in their own right. He was promising to let the lawyer corner the market, in the hope he would later make a killing when the fake stuff became openly collectable.

Helena and I watched peacefully. As Popillius set about fetching the cash for his hoard, we parked under what would have been a fig tree if we were in the Mediterranean. Here it was some anonymous bush. Someone appeared to be aware of the concept of shady courtyards with cool pergolas, though if you looked more closely, the yard had been recently used for keeping draught animals. It must have been roughly cleaned up for the lawyer when he wanted to rent.

The jet salesman made a feeble attempt to interest us, indicating that I should buy a trinket for Helena. He could see what a mistake that was. She herself rebuffed him. I waved him away more gently. 'Sorry, pal; left my purse in the bedroom.' He knew I was lying, but he strolled off happily with his profits from the lawyer.

Popillius was a clean-cut sandy type. Thirties, maybe. Not quite too young to carry professional weight, but giving the impression he had energy and ambition, as well as his cynical greed for fees. He had a light, upper-crust voice, which was hard to place. A new man quite recently, I would say, maybe with grandparents who made it into the middle class, provincials even. Close enough for the infant Popillius to have heard their tales of backwoods life, and to be sufficiently enthralled to tackle a remote province himself. Either that, or he had absconded with a client's funds and had needed to leave Rome fast.

'This is my husband, Didius Falco,' Helena said. 'I mentioned him last night.' She had not told me I had been discussed. Now I was stuck, not knowing what role she had assigned to me. I grinned, sheepishly.

'Greetings, Falco.' Thank goodness, Popillius himself had no recollection of his chat at dinner with Helena. He was desperately trying to remember who and what I was, though he did remember Helena. Jealousy works two ways: I hoped he did not remember her too well. Lawyers womanise almost as hard as they drink. I knew; I had met plenty in my work.

We talked a bit about what Popillius hoped for in Britain. I suggested he was a slave-chaser, suing people for the return of runaways or for seducing someone else's human property. He reckoned British society was insufficiently slave-orientated to bring in much business of that type. 'There are slaves condemned to hard labour; they simply slog until they die, in remote locations. Domestically, if a household owns a couple of little kitchen workers, that's it. They are far too well treated – they end up marrying the master or mistress. No incentive to run away, and they don't even seem to get laid by the neighbours much.'