Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

I took a chance. 'We know who it is. I need to find Petro to warn him and to back him up. We are looking for a top man called Florius.'

'Well, good for you,' commented Firmus, in a distinctly quiet voice. He had known all along. I wondered how many others also knew, but were too scared to say.

Petronius was not at the baths. The man in charge accepted that I was a friend, and said he thought Petro had gone back over to the residence. There, Helena told me I had missed him. 'I may be wrong, Marcus, but I thought he was looking for Maia.' Helena was watching me closely.

'Did he find her?' I asked in a non-committal tone. 'No, she had gone out.'

I checked both their rooms. Petro's was exactly as I had seen it that morning when I wanted to tell him about Pyro's death. Maia's looked as if a troop of wild monkeys had run through it; still, that was usual for her. She kept a well-run home, but her own quarters were always a tip. She had been the same since she was a girl – clothes strewn everywhere, lids open on boxes, and dried-up face paint mixed weeks ago in shells. Partly it was because she never spent any time there. Until that bastard Anacrites made her hunted and shrewish, she was too gregarious, always out and about.

A potted plant, some feeble British thing, all leaves, stood on a side table. 'Now I wonder where that came from?' Sharp-eyed, Helena had noticed it. She had come up behind me, curious what I was thinking.

'Is it new?'

'Some love gift to Maia from Norbanus?' Helena speculated.

'So it's gardening now. Will he stand more chance with foliage than with his sinister harpist?'

'She sent the harpist back this morning,' said Helena, as if she thought I might have had something to do with it. 'The plant may be from someone else…'

'So where's she gone? I hope she's not playing at country life with Norbanus in his villa.'

'I doubt it.'

'She told me she would.'

Helena smiled. 'She tells you a lot of nonsense. This villa seems rather odd, in any case. Marcus, the man who tailed the carrying-chair, came back this morning and reported to Uncle Gaius.'

'And you just happened to be talking to your uncle at the right moment…?' I grinned.

Helena smiled again, serenely. 'Norbanus lives in the northern part of town. According to the neighbours, he stays in Londinium every day. They were surprised even to hear he has a villa on the river. It sounds as if he never goes there.'

'Why is he so keen to show it off to Maia then?' Was it purely his love nest for seductions? I preferred not to think about that. 'What do these neighbours say of him?'

'A very ordinary man.'

'Informers know that no man is ordinary.'

'Well, all men think they are special,' Helena retorted. I grinned. Luckily I liked her to be prejudiced. 'What about this one?'

'Norbanus lives quietly. Talks to people pleasantly. Speaks fondly and frequently of his widowed mother. Pats dogs. Eats lunch at a local food shop. Is respectful to local women and communicative with local men. He is generally liked, a good neighbour, they say.'

'I especially like the touch about the mother.' I then told Helena that the quiet ones always harbour dark secrets. When killers or world-beating fraudsters are apprehended, their neighbours invariably shriek with surprise. First they deny that such a sweet person could have done something terrible. Later they themselves hone up sensational tales of how he dragged a teenage girl down an alley, and always had a weird look in his eyes… Helena commented on how cynical I was today.

Well, maybe Norbanus was full of antique nobility. Even so, I did not want my sister cuddling up to him in some British bower. I went into Maia's silent room and sat upon the bed, staring at the plant. Helena remained in the doorway, watching me thoughtfully. I told her what I had discovered that morning about Florius. 'You never met him, did you?'

She shook her head. 'No. His relatives were bad enough. Petro had a visitation from Milvia once, when he was staying with us.' That would have been just after Petro's own wife threw him out. Helena grimaced. 'And Marcus, wasn't it her horrid mother who barged in another time, blustering that our Lucius must leave her darling flower alone? As if we were not trying very hard to make him do just that – for his own sake!'

'I wish Petro had taken the advice.'

'The mother was a fright,' Helena reminisced. 'All threats and venom. And Balbina Milvia! One of those girls I hate – bright eyes and loads of enviable jewellery. Much too pretty to bother with good manners or brains.'

'Bad sex!' I exclaimed.

Helena looked shocked. 'How do you know that? Did Petronius Longus tell you, during some evil drinking bout?'

'Actually no. He has never talked about his lovers.' He and I had leered at plenty of women from wine bars over the years; I knew how he thought. 'But you can see Milvia is only interested in herself. She wanted Petronius because having a secret lover made her feel important.'

Helena still felt she had stumbled on evidence of some boys' lewd game. She had never entirely trusted me not to be off on some affair. Chloris was the current suspect, of course. Frowning, she went back to our original discussion. 'You thought Milvia was trouble.'

'I was right.'

'As for the husband, he was ineffectual.'

'Not nowadays. It's all change in the Balbinus mob. The mother is showing her age. Who knows where the wilful wifey is? But Florius has transmogrified from a loose piece of gristle into one of the world's tight dealers. His treatment of Verovolcus shows he suffers nobody to stand in his way now.'

Helena was concerned. 'Florius had you attacked once. Then Petro was caught alone, and he was very badly hurt.'

'A warning.'

'Yet Petronius is still determined to get Florius? While Florius knows exactly who he is dealing with: Petronius Longus of the vigiles enquiry team, who turned Florius' sweet little, rich little wife into an adulteress – and then didn't even want her, but dumped her back at home.'

'I'm sure he gave Milvia a happy time first,' I said. It was automatic. Then I thought of him kissing my sister last night in that grim scenario, and I felt squeamish.

'What's wrong?' asked Helena. I shook my head. After a moment she let it go and said, 'These people want revenge.'

'That's right. And they won't quit.'

I stood up. I stopped wondering where my sister was. Off enjoying herself on some tryst with the suave and slimy Norbanus, while her last night's lover was in serious trouble.

I decided to retrace my steps to the baths. Petro would turn up some time. But first the hour was late enough to take in lunch here. Hilaris must be ravenous too, after our dawn start when the corpse was found, for we met him also guiltily scrounging in the dining room. That was how Helena and I happened to be with him when a confidential messenger arrived from the troops. In a great hurry, the man was looking for the governor. Hilaris knew Frontinus was still working diligently on dispatches, but before the messenger was passed to the right office, Hilaris made him tell us what the fuss was.

Splice had escaped.

We all rushed with the messenger to see the governor. Frontinus heard the news with that neutrality good officials learn. He must have been angry, but waited to think through the implications before shooting off.

'What exactly happened?'

'I only know what I was told to say, sir.' The messenger skilfully let blame slide on to others. 'The soldiers escorting the prisoner were somehow given the slip and they lost him.'

'That was first thing this morning. How come I only just have word of it?'

'They tried to recapture him, sir.'

Frontinus was speechless. Losing a vital prisoner was inexcusable. But to me it seemed typical; I could imagine some slack bunch of lags out here, laughing among themselves: Oh just say sorry to the old man – be all right about it…