Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

Hilaris and I tried to look appreciative.

'What do you want to know?' Amicus then asked as an afterthought.

'The truth,' said Hilaris, with a hint of a smile.

'Oh you're a case, procurator!'

'Someone has to have values,' I chided. 'Here's the list: we want to know about protection rackets; two murders – a Briton drowned in a well for unknown reasons and a baker beaten to death for resisting the rackets; and gang leaders.'

'There are thought to be two,' stated the procurator. 'Even one name would help.'

Amicus nodded. These trite tasks seemed to intrigue him much less than Democritean principles. He led off his assistant, the lank Titus, with the deathly catchphrase, 'Bring the bag, Titus!'

I should have mentioned the bag. It was enormous. Titus could hardly heave it up on to his shoulder as he swaggered after Amicus. It caught the doorframe a glancing blow as they went out, removing a chunk of architrave and emitting a resounding clank from heavy metal implements within.

Amicus popped his head back around the door. Flavius Hilaris, who had been inspecting the crunched joinery, dropped a fragment of architrave and stepped back, looking ashamed of himself for being annoyed at the damage.

'Do you want it done without leaving any marks?' enquired Amicus.

I thought Hilaris went pale. He found the right thing to say: 'The enforcers have a lawyer.'

'Oh!' replied the torturer, impressed. He looked pleased to hear of this challenge. 'I'll be very careful then!'

He went out again. Hilaris resumed his seat. Neither of us said anything. We were both subdued.

Helena discovered me studying a street map. She leaned over my shoulder, inspecting a note tablet on which I had written down a list of names. 'Shower of Gold, Ganymede, Swan – Swan must be as in Leda, seduced by Jupiter in the form of a big white birdie. Shower of Gold would be his other conquest, Dana Ganymede is Jove's cup-bearer -'

'You follow my thinking,' I agreed

'The wine shops your gangsters prey on all now have names linked to Jupiter? It's a theme! How thrilling,' Helena exclaimed, with her own brand of well-bred mockery. 'Some man thinks well of himself for dreaming up this.'

'As an antique dealer's son, I do like things that come in sets,' I confirmed drily. 'So helpful for their accountants too – bound to be accountants plural, of course: "File all signed-up cauponae under Jove!" Then again, proprietors who want to resist the pressure will see just how powerful the enforcers are, as they notice more and more Jupiter bars.

'We could go for a walk,' Helena decided. 'We have time before dinner. We could take the map and mark up places. See how far the enforcement area extends.'

Nux was already chasing around us excitedly.

We spent a couple of hours crisscrossing the street grid from near the river to the forum. It made us both depressed. The permissive god's adulterous girlfriends were all featured: Io, Europa, Danae, Alcmene, Leda, Niobe and Semele. What a boy! The ever-jealous Queen of Heaven, Hera, would not like to spend a festival break in Londinium seeing all these rivals given prominence. For the safety of this town, I was myself wishing the Celestial King had kept his divine prick under wraps more. The beauteous bedmates were just the start. Thunderbolts adorned innocuous looking pot-of-pulse parlours and sceptres ruled over British beer gardens. Painters who could do attractive bolts of lightning must have been in heaven. Or rather, they were using up their fees swigging Lower German red at the Olympus Winery on the corner of downtown Fish Street. With hot or cold ambrosia served in gritty flatbread every lunchtime, no doubt.

Prices were very expensive. Well, they had to be. The people who ran these Jovian snack-counters needed to subsidise their payments to the heavy squad. Somebody somewhere was raking in money from this dead-end shantytown, hot money in huge quantities. This walk really brought it home to me that the gang leaders would be furious that Pyro and Splice, who collected the cash, had been locked up by the governor – at my suggestion.

Back home, Helena dismissed the slave who came to curl her hair and instead of primping she crouched beside a window to catch the evening light while she marked up our map with neat blobs of red ink. I came back from a lukewarm bathe, then saw how the map looked, and swore. The dots encroached on the commercial quarter to the east of the bridge, running right up across the Decumanus Maximus to the forum.

I sent the map along to Frontinus, to depress him while he was shaved. I sat in the wrap-around chair. Helena had a rapid sponge-wash, tweaked a gown from her clothes chest, clipped on jewellery. She touched my cheek. 'You look tired, Marcus.'

'I'm wondering what I have got myself into.'

She came across to me, combing her fine hair. After a vague attempt to pin it up, she let the whole swathe tumble. Knowing the comb would stick in my curls, she neatened them instead with her long fingers. 'You know this is vital.'

'I know it's dangerous.'

'You think it's right.'

'They need to be stopped by someone, yes.'

'But you wonder why you?' Helena knew that sometimes I relied on her to reassure me. 'Because you have the persistence, Marcus. You have the courage, the intellectual skills, the sheer anger that is needed to face up to such wickedness.'

I put my arms around her, hiding my face against her stomach. She stood, crouching a little over me, one hand running inside the neck of my tunic to massage my spine. I heard myself groan wearily. 'I want to go home!'

'Marcus, we can't go, not until you have finished here.'

'It never ends though, sweetheart.' I leaned back and looked up at her. 'Organised crime keeps coming. One success only quells it temporarily and opens possibilities for new rackets.'

'Don't be so disheartened.'

I smiled ruefully. 'I'm tired. I didn't sleep two nights ago. My girlfriend had a fight with me… Love me?'

Her thumb caressed my forehead. 'If I didn't love you, I would not have had the fight.'

That was when I chose to tell her – when I had to tell her – we were liable to see Chloris at the residence that night.

Helena released her hold on me, but when I caught her hands in mine she did not resist. 'Don't get this wrong, love. Chloris has to make her deposition for the governor and she has also been asked to look at our dinner guests. Both Norbanus and Popillius have been invited tonight, along with other newcomers who could be the gang leaders. This is business, Helena. I'm not playing about.'

Helena merely said quietly, 'What she is doing is perilous.'

'I know.' I was terse. 'She does not seem to know that her status makes the witness statement unusable in court.'

'She is doing it for you.'

'She's doing it because she likes stirring!' She always did. Women like that don't change. 'I am not sure she sees just what danger she courts.'

'Her career is based on physical risk,' Helena pointed out.

'Yes, but that's her choice. She enjoys the thrills and she earns a great deal of money. She and the other girls have come here to Britain because fighting in the new amphitheatre will make them independent for life – if they survive. But tangling with street criminals is different. The odds on survival are far worse. If I were an ethical person I would spell out the truth to her.'

'But you need what she tells you.'

'Well, I could myself report to Frontinus what she said, but he won't act on hearsay.'

'She saw what happened,' Helena insisted. 'Infamous or not, if Frontinus interviews her in private and he believes her, then she will give his actions validity.'

'Closed room verdicts are not my favourite scene, Helena.'