Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

My sister and my friend both had tragic histories. Petro, once seemingly respectable, domesticated, and kind to tabby kittens, had plunged into a crass affair. He had strayed from home before, but this was with a gangster's wife, which was disastrous. Even his tribune became touchy about it, and his wife divorced him. Silvia took his daughters away to Ostia, where she now lived with a low-grade seasonal street-food seller; she had humiliated Petronius as much as possible.

Maia, equally settled apparently, had then been widowed. This situation is often to be welcomed, though even the deadbeats and wastrels my sisters married were rarely eaten by arena lions in Tripolitania after a trial for blasphemy. Few families on the Aventine could boast of so much excitement and we were trying to keep the dishonour quiet, for the sake of Maia's children. Lying about it no doubt added to her sense of isolation. She had made other mistakes too. Bad ones. She made a fool of herself with Anacrites the Chief Spy, for one thing. That was a situation we could not talk about at all.

'I thought they just needed time,' Helena sighed.

'Oh they may yet be prodded into close proximity – but you'll need to use a long stick.' Petronius Longus was a big lad, and my sister could be volatile.

'Better not to interfere, Marcus.'

'Right.'

If the bad thing about staying in an official residence was constant smalltalk, the good was that on the occasions Helena and I did sneak off alone, we were entirely alone. Nux, my dog, was scrabbling outside the door now, but we could pretend to ignore her. Our two little daughters, along with Maia's children, were safe in the custody of Aelia Camilla's nursery staff. Even our hopeless nursemaid had been absorbed and put to some use; I dreamed that she would stay there when we left.

'This is fine,' I said, stretching lazily. 'What we need is a house with so many rooms that nobody can find us, and cohorts of obedient staff, trained to walk about in silence, sponging away all trace of children's mashed-up food with tolerant smiles.'

'They have a Greek steward who can play the tibia.'

'The double flute! We could get one. We wouldn't need a new nursemaid if we had him to put the babies off to sleep with his tootling.'

'This one certainly soothed you into nodding off last night!' scoffed Helena.

'He's a rotten player. Anyway, I confess I had a drop too much to drink with Petro before dinner. I was trying to cheer him up.'

'You failed then, Marcus.'

'Lucius Petronius is not a happy boy.'

'Well he should be! He's going to the bad, isn't he? He chose to do it,' Helena said crisply. 'He damn well should enjoy it.'

'Going bad was good fun when I tried it. I don't know why he's so incompetent…

'Hasn't found the right rope-dancer yet.'

Helena was referring to an old girlfriend of mine. She had never even met the woman, but she never let me forget that she knew of my colourful past.

To retaliate, I closed my eyes with a smile of supposed blissful reminiscence. A mistake, of course. My thoughts really did stray in the wrong direction. Helena knew that. She whacked me with a cushion, right at the spot where my stomach was digesting its unsatisfactory British lunch.

Petronius had in fact now ceased to be a social embarrassment. He completely disappeared. He left me a rudely worded note to say he was going off alone. He did not say he was leaving the province, nor did he give me any clue where to contact him. I checked discreetly with the procurator's staff: Petro had been seen leaving the governor's residence, wearing what my prissy slave informant described as a very dirty tunic. (So at least he was not off screwing some carrot-haired woman he had left behind to marinade ten years ago.) I found all his usual clothes, still in his pack, under the bed in the guestroom he had occupied. When Petro went to the bad, he threw himself into it in sordid style.

I tried not to feel envious.

In Rome, I would have assumed he was on vigiles surveillance and thought nothing of it. Here, a continent away from his official patch, that explanation could not apply. For him simply to vanish without discussion troubled me; I wondered if he were even more unhappy than I had noticed.

Maia was less sympathetic. 'Now you know how Helena feels when you just stay out and don't tell her why,' she reproved me. 'Still, he's a man. He is thoughtless and selfish. That's all we can expect.' She had dumped him, so presumably she did not care, but her children had grown enormously fond of Petro on their long trip across Europe together; they were giving their mother a bad time, mithering over where he was. Maia had no answers – a situation that never suited her.

'Am I to set him a place tonight at dinner, I wonder?' asked Aelia Camilla, more anxious and puzzled than annoyed. She was a decent woman.

'No, don't. In fact,' scoffed Maia, 'don't set him a place even if he suddenly comes back!'

Petronius did not return.

Abandoned by Petronius, that afternoon I settled down to work. Being asked to investigate the Verovolcus case would keep me trapped in Londinium even longer than I wanted, but I could not refuse the procurator and governor.

The governor, for one, thought it amusing to see me lumbered. Sextus Julius Frontinus was in his forties, a dedicated ex-consul whom I had met a couple of years before in Rome. We had worked together to solve a cruel series of female fatalities. Most consuls stink; he seemed different and I took to him. Frontinus had all the makings of an old-time Roman in power: soldierly, cultured, intrigued by administrative problems of all kinds, decent, absolutely straight. He had asked for me by name as his trouble-solver on the Togidubnus palace audit. My success there made me even more popular.

'If anyone can decipher what happened to the King's crony it's you, Falco.'

'Honeyed words!' I never treated men of rank with fake respect. If my manner seemed abrasive, that was tough. Frontinus knew I would do a good job; I had a fair idea what this crime was about, and I was blunt: 'My guess is, Verovolcus skulked up to Londinium hoping to escape notice. He wanted to stay in Britain. Then he cut across some locals at the bar. The hothead tried to lord it. They took exception. Someone tipped him arse-up in the cask-lined waterhole. While he was gurgling – or just before they plunged him in – they took the chance to pinch his torque. They scarpered. Any officer on your staff with local knowledge should track them down. Find the torque and it should convict them.'

'Nice theory,' retorted the governor, unmoved. 'I can accept that. Now prove it, Falco, before Togidubnus hears the tragic news and gallops here with sparks flying.'

He was very down to earth. He must have been chosen for Britain because the Emperor thought him both efficient and adaptable. I knew from talking to him already that he had a heavy programme ahead. In the three years he would administer Britain, Frontinus was planning to Romanise the province completely. He was about to embark on a major military expansion, with a big campaign against the untamed western tribes, then perhaps a further campaign in the north. In the stabilised interior, he wanted to establish ten or twelve new civic centres, self-governing coloniae, where the tribes would be semi-autonomous. Londinium, his winter headquarters, was to become a full municipality and a major works programme would aggrandise the place. If all this came off, as I thought it would, Britain would be transformed. Julius Frontinus would haul this marginal, barbarian province properly into the Empire.

Britain was a hard posting. It took its toll on every grade. Flavius Hilaris had taken over the financial role after his predecessor, the Gaul who restored order after Boudicca, died in harness. The governorship had a worse history. Suetonius Paullinus had been formally reported to Rome for incompetence. In the Year of the Four Emperors, Turpilianus was ousted by his military legates who then – unthinkably – ran Britain as a committee. Petilius Cerialis, the immediate past incumbent, had a history of ludicrous errors; he had acquired the job only because he was related to Vespasian.