Lindsey Davis - Ode to a Banker

Ajax, their mad dog, now leapt on me. He was black and white, with a long snout, ferocious teeth that did occasionally sink into strangers, and a long feathered tail. He made Nux, who was a vagabond, seem well-disciplined. Just as I got a grip on him, he leapt off again. Then he kept barking and running in circles, trying to rush into the bedroom, where I guessed Helena had penned in Nux.

'You are ragging him,' Junia accused me. 'He'll never quieten down now.'

'I'm going to tie him up in the porch. Nux's expecting puppies and I don't want her to be harassed.'

'Time you thought of having another one too, Helena!' Junia knew instinctively just how to enrage Helena.

'You are turning into Ma,' I said.

'And that's another thing -' Apparently some complaint had been voiced before I arrived. 'I blame you for introducing that dreadful man to Mother.'

'If you mean Anacrites, he was dying at the time. I wish he had been finished, but that's a spy for you. When he looks as if somebody has caved half his head in and he can't last the night, he suddenly reveals that he has an iron constitution and was just fooling – then he stabs you in the back.'

'It's disgusting!' snapped Junia. Her black Cleopatra ringlets quivered and what she possessed in the way of a bosom swelled with indignation beneath the shiny material of her over-laundered gown.

'He pays Ma the rent. Stop worrying One quiet lodger is not too much for her. Ma loves having someone to fuss over. Since Anacrites went to live with her she's looked really quite spruce.'

'You have no idea!' raged my sister. She threw an angry glance at Helena. But after the offspring hint, Helena merely smiled frostily, refusing to join in Junia's rant.

I decided not to refer to Anacrites' apparent yen for Maia. Maia had enough problems. I was squinting into various bowls and jugs that were set on the table, though Gaius Baebius, who was always stolidly ravenous, seemed to have cleared out everything snackable. He saw me looking, with his usual complacence. He was a customs clerk, so I hated him even before I noticed the empty nutshell pile at his elbow and the trace of olive oil gleaming on his chin.

Little Marcus Baebius was growing frustrated. Junia wanted to berate me, so she had stopped paying attention to him. Gaius tried taking him from Junia, but this produced only paroxysms of fury. In the end, the anguished tot hurled himself face down, beating his head on the floorboards while he yelled and wept in a spectacular fashion.

Julia Junilla, our daughter, sat on Helena's lap behaving perfectly for a change. She was staring at her cousin, obviously taking tantrum lessons. I could see she was impressed.

'Ignore him,' mouthed Junia. That was rather hard to do. It was a small room, overcrowded with four adults and two children.

'I think it's time you took him home, Junia.'

'I have to talk to you.'

'Can't it wait?'

'No; it's about Father.'

'Pa as well! You seem to be wearing yourself out on family duties.'

'We saw him today, Marcus.'

Ignored, Marcus Baebius had stopped wailing and was playing dead. Junia would shriek when she noticed. Ajax went and sat on him, slobbering aimlessly. In the silence, I could now hear desperate whining from Nux in the other room.

'Leave it, Junia. Pa is in a mess, but he will sort himself out once he thinks up some new way to annoy people.'

'Well, if you lack a sense of duty, brother, I know I don't.'

'Isn't it just a question of falling on him in his grief, and pointingout that you would like to be his heirs?' I was too tired to be careful.

'Come off it, Marcus,' muttered Gaius, roused to defend thespecimen of womanhood he had chosen as his prickly wife. I had had enough.

'What do you want, Junia?'

'I came to keep you informed.'

'Of what?'

'I have volunteered to help our Father: I shall be running his caupona for him.'

It was at that moment that the party increased in numbers and the tension rose rapidly too: Maia stormed in.

She had Marius with her – her nine-year-old elder boy – whom I had recommended as a spare hand for the auction house. Maia clutched him to her skirts, with her hand tangled in his tunic as if he was in some trouble. He must have been present when Junia tackled Pa, and had let slip to his mother what he had heard. He winced at me. I mimed back a cringe.

'So!' exclaimed Maia. She definitely knew then. It was going to be rough. Ajax sprang up and was about to jump all over her, but Maia snarled herself and sent him slinking into a corner, completely cowed.

'Hello, Maia you poor darling,' cooed Junia. They had never got on. Junia stepped over her own prone child (who had stopped holding his breath since he could see it was not working) and grappled Maia for sympathetic kissing.

Maia broke free, with a shudder. I waved frantically to tell my outraged younger sister not to press charges over the caupona scam.

Ever quick, Maia belted in her wrath. She and I had always been conspiratorial, and usually allied against our elder siblings. That left Junia looking for a quarrel which failed to materialise. She assumed an expression of slight puzzlement. With years of practice, Maia and I could make her feel threatened without revealing how.

'How are you bearing up to widowhood, Maia?'

'Oh, don't you worry about me.'

'And here's poor little Marius!'

Marius sidled free of both my sisters and huddled against me where I gave him a surreptitious hug. Knowing that Maia hated her children being showered with treats, Junia insisted on donating him an as to buy sweetmeats. Marius accepted the coin as if it were coated with poison, deliberately forgetting to say thanks. Junia pulled him up on that, while Maia seethed.

Junia then made sure she told Maia of her own scheme to run Flora's.

'Oh really?' said Maia indifferently – then she and I set about making fun of the idea that stiff and stately Junia might ever work behind a foodshop bar.

'A caupona is hard work,' Helena joined in.

'You're all being ridiculous,' Junia assured us. 'I shall only supervise from a distance. The place is worked by waiting staff.'

We laughed openly at that. I knew Apollonius, the sole waiter, much better than she did, and I could not see him putting up with her. Anyway, Junia had a long history of quarrelling with minions. 'I don't know why you want to take on such a burden,' said Helena. Her voice was deceptively gentle. 'I thought your role in life was as Gaius' companionable partner – true Roman marriage: keeping the home, nurturing your child, and sharing your husband's intimate confidences.'

Junia looked at Helena with deep suspicion; all my wicked lass had left out of the idyllic myth was 'working your loom in the atrium', though that really would have given the game away. Not a flicker of a smile betrayed Helena.

'Junia always was an independent woman,' Gaius oozed. 'She is so capable we can't waste her talents. She will enjoy a little project of her own.'

'It will be the first time I ever remember our Junia holding down a job,' I scoffed. As far as I knew, she had lined up Gaius as a respectable prospect when she was about fourteen. She had sniffed out that he happened to be an orphan, left with his own apartment. He was older than Junia and already in work in the customs service – his only career. Gaius was a one job lifer; his employer could treat him like a slave, yet his loyalty would never fade. Equally, being snaffled by my sister had been a relief to him. I doubt if he would ever have had a romantic experience otherwise. He and Junia had started saving up for ghastly furniture and an eight-bowl dinner set the minute they first held hands on a garden bench.

'Better send word to the Valerian that they'll be getting a lot of new customers from over the road,' Maia jibed acidly.