Lindsey Davis - A Body In The Bath House

'I'm surprised you stayed at home,' I scoffed at my sister.

'I would have gone to see the fun!' Maia assured me. 'But you have two babes in arms, Marcus. Your nurse is a complete wastrel and since their mother has abandoned them, I'm looking after them.'

I was making preparations. I called out to the others. There was a water flagon on a tray; I drained it. We had no time to rest. No time to wash off the sweat, blood and smells of the dog kennel. I checked my bootstraps and weapons.

'Where did Hyspale and Blandus go?'

'The Rainbow Trout. Hyspale wanted to see the dancer.' To be a woman in the company of the men 'Stupenda' aroused would not be clever. Helena would instinctively understand that. Hyspale had no idea. Hyspale had been nothing but trouble to the pair of us, but Helena made up for the other woman's complete absence of feeling for danger. 'He'll jump her,' said Maia bleakly. Nobody needed to tell me that. 'And the silly chit will be so surprised.'

'I'll go. Don't worry.'

'With you in charge?' Maia was now positively caustic. I told myself it was a form of relief since I would have to take the blame.

All my sisters liked to disrupt life with a complete turnaround just when plans had been made. 'I'm coming too,' Maia suddenly declared.

'Maia! As you said just now, there are two small children -'

But it seemed one crisis had forced her to speak out over another. The moment was inconvenient but that never stopped Maia. She gripped my arms, her fingers digging through my tunic sleeves. 'Ask yourself then, Marcus! If you feel like this about your children, what about mine? Who is looking after mine, Marcus? Where are they? What condition are they in? Are they frightened? Are they in danger? Are they crying for me?'

I forced myself to listen patiently. The truth was, I did find it odd that Petronius Longus had never sent a single word of what the situation was. He must have made arrangements for my sister's children – with Ma looking after them, probably. I would have expected a letter, at least one that was heavily coded, if not to Maia then to me.

'I don't know what is going on, Maia. I was not in on the plot.'

'The children had help,' Maia insisted. 'Helena Justina.' Helena had admitted it. 'Petronius Longus.' That was obvious. 'You too?' Maia demanded.

'No, really. I knew nothing.'

It was the truth. Maybe my sister believed it. At any rate, she agreed to take care of my two daughters, and she let me go.

It had been a long afternoon, but a much longer evening lay ahead.

The rainbow trout was a dump. I expected that. It stood at the junction of a puddled lane with a frightening alley, just two or three kinks in the road from the town's south gate. Calling its location a road is a courtesy. However, it did have a set of road-menders installing new cobbles at one end – and the inevitable workmen following them, tearing up the brand-new blocks in order to fiddle with a drain. Civic-amenity management in true Roman style had hit this province.

There was no streetside space where food shops with marble counters could offer food and drink to passers-by. A grubby wall, mainly blank, offered a couple of tiny barred windows too high to see in through. The heavy door stood half open; that passed as a welcome. A petite signboard showed a sad grey fish who would be a waste of pan space. There was no graffiti outside the wall, which told us that no one in this neighbourhood could read. In any case, they had cleared the streets. Provincials don't dally. Why linger to socialise when your province has no meaningful society?

I had the Camilli and Larius with me. We stepped down a couple of uneven treads into a gloomy cavern. It had a warm rank smell: too much to hope this was caused by animals – the people alone were responsible. There was one interior drinking den, with misshapen curtains half concealing filthy anterooms that ran off to the sides like burrows. Quality customers were perhaps reclining in an upstairs gallery, though it seemed unlikely. There was no upstairs.

That was to be rectified. Like everywhere these days, the Rainbow Trout had a facility-improvement programme. It was being extended upwards; so far, percentage progress was zero. A gaping hole in the ceiling marked the spot where a stairway was to be opened up. That was all.

Downstairs offered sparse amenities. Lamps were kept to a minimum. One amphora stood propped in a corner. Covered with dust, it served more as an item of decor than a source of supply. From the shape, it had only held olives, not wine. A single shelf carried a line of beakers, in odd sizes.

The place was far too quiet. I knew exactly how many labourers worked on our project. Even allowing for stragglers, most were not here. Maybe we were too early for the dancer. Musicians were certainly due to play tonight: on a bench lay a worrying pipe with a skin bag attached, whilst a hand drum was being pattered lethargically by a long-faced laggard dressed in what passed around here for glamour (a dull pinkish tunic edged in unravelling two-tone braid).

Of 'Stupenda' there was no sign. Nor did she have a decent audience. The place should have been packed, with people sitting or even standing on the rectangular tables as well as squashed on every bench. Instead, a handful of men dawdled over their drinks in ones and twos. The most interesting presence was a three-foot-high statue of a Cupid, supposedly bronze, on a plinth in the corner opposite the amphora. The love god had chubby cheeks, a big belly and a sinister fixed expression as he aimed his bow.

'Save us!' muttered Aelianus gloomily. 'Sextius must have been touting his tat. The landlord must be an idiot to buy that.'

'Rather a ferocious talking point!' Justinus observed. Instead of an arrow, some wag from the site had provided the naked Eros with a long iron nail in his bow. I made an audit note that nails were disappearing from the palace stores. 'Don't anyone turn your back on this little blighter.'

'You're safe,' his brother assured him. 'He's supposed to shoot harmless blunt arrows, but we never could make him operate.'

'Why have a love god on the premises when there are no skirts in sight?' complained Larius. There were no women visible. No Hyspale; no Helena. 'No Virginia!' groaned Larius to Justinus.

'Avoiding you,' came the reply, with an edge which suggested Justinus did know Larius had already had some luck with the girl.

We tired of waiting for a greeter to seat us and positioned ourselves at a table. This took some doing as all the stools had wobbly legs. I managed to keep mine steady by wedging one knee under the table rim and bracing the other leg. A man with a grimy apron lurched from a back pantry to serve us. Aelianus asked, in his crisp aristocratic accent, to see the wine list. It was the sort of dump where customers were so locked up in their own misery, nobody noticed this crazy breach of etiquette. Even the waiter simply told him that there wasn't one. It was hard work causing a shocked silence here, let alone making people fail to see a joke.

We had what came. Everyone had what came. Ours was brought in a blackened flagon, which seemed to be a polite gesture to Roman visitors. The rest had theirs poured into their Celtic face-pots from a cracked old jug which was taken away after one quick slosh.

'Could you run to a dish of appetisers?' Aelianus asked. He was a joy to take undercover.

'What?'

'Forget it!' I ordered. I had just tasted the drink. I wasn't risking food. All my companions had parents who would blame me if they expired of dysentery.

A handful of trench-diggers sidled in, looking like first-timers here. After an age they were joined by a small group of more boisterous characters, determined to make the party swing. They failed. We all sat unhappily, wishing we had stayed at home. A couple of the lamps faded and died. Half the customers looked ready to follow them. The trench-diggers muttered among themselves for a while, then stood up together and snuck out like ferrets, giving the rest of us guilty smiles as if they wanted to apologise that they had left us suffering.