Lindsey Davis - One Virgin Too Many

"Virgins who break their vows of chastity are buried alive," Ma scoffed. "It sounds as though this one should have been buried somewhere deep the instant she retired."

"I have a feeling," Helena answered, "that whatever this woman has done or said-or whatever she is planning-may be at the heart of what was troubling Gaia Laelia."

If she was right, a dreamy soul like Scaurus hardly seemed an adequate guardian of the lady's affairs. Nor did he inspire me in his role as father to a disturbed and rather isolated six-year-old. "Well, we may have to accept that it is none of our business. Not one of these people is a paying client of mine."

"When did that stop you?" muttered Ma.

"The little girl asked you for help," Helena reminded me. Then she paused, looking thoughtful. I knew her well enough to wait. "There is something madly wrong about that legal tale Scaurus spun you."

"It sounded reasonable to me."

"But for one thing." Helena had made up her mind and was highly indignant. "Marcus, it's complete nonsense-a Vestal Virgin is exempt from the rules of female guardianship!"

"Are you certain?"

"Of course," Helena rebuked me for doubting her. "It is one of their famous privileges."

My mother's mouth tightened. "Total freedom from male interference! The best reason for ever becoming a Vestal, if you ask me."

"Of course," said Helena, calming down as she became interested in the problem, "it is always possible that the ex-Vestal in question has to have a guardian for special reasons. She may be disposing of her property in a brazenly profligate manner."

"Or she may be a lunatic!" Ma chortled wickedly.

But Terentia Paulla sounded too good an organizer for that to be the case.

"So," I pondered, with a certain amount of annoyance, "Laelius Scaurus is either an unworldly booby who has utterly misunderstood something his aunt has said to him-or he has just bamboozled me with a pack of outright lies!"

But why should he do that?

I had let Scaurus go and we were too far down the road for me to drive back and challenge him. Besides, I really had to think about Gaia. Tomorrow was the Nones of June. In two days' time, as any conscientious procurator knew from consulting his calendar of festivals, would begin a period that was sacred to Vesta, including two great days of ceremony called the Vestalia. The women of Rome would progress to the temple to beg the goddess for favor in the coming year; there would be elaborate cleansing ceremonies for the temple and its storehouse. The start of these events this year was when the Pontifex Maximus had elected to draw lots for the next Virgin, after which it seemed likely that Gaia's fate would be fixed. Even if I did attempt to help her, I had only three days left. After that, the girl might well be removed from the oppression and strife of her family; but she would be sweeping up embers from the Sacred Hearth for the next thirty years.

Her father's aunt, who had carried out the duties for a full term, thought this a bad idea. Well, she should know.

The nones of June was dedicated to Jupiter, Guardian of Truth. Naturally, this was my favorite manifestation of the Best and Greatest of gods. Truth, in the life of an informer, is such a rare phenomenon. In case there were any ramifications for me in the festival, I made damned sure I stayed away from the big temples on the Capitol.

I had now been home from Africa for about ten days. I had expected that private clients who had need of an informer would have heard this with relief, and would start queuing up for my expert advice. Prospective clients thought otherwise.

There were three reasons to accept this calmly. Firstly, my supposed new partner, Camillus Justinus, was abroad and unable to share the task of rebuilding the business. If he offended his girlfriend's rich relatives in Corduba they might extract her and leave him so desolate he would go off on Herculean adventures for the next ten years. If Claudia's grandparents took to him too much, however, they might set him up as a married man, permanently growing olives in Baetica. Either way, if I ever saw him again, I would be lucky. But until I knew the result for certain, I was hampered in honing my business plan.

Secondly, I had rented an office in the Saepta Julia when I worked with Anacrites, but I dumped that when I dumped him. Once again my nominal office was my old apartment in Fountain Court, still occupied by Petronius Longus since his wife left him. Any person who needed to employ an informer was likely to have reasons to keep their private life unofficial on all fronts; they would be horrified to arrive for a consultation and find a large specimen of the official vigiles in his after-hours tunic, swigging a drink, with his feet up on the balcony parapet. I could not evict Petro. Instead I currently interviewed any clients who did turn up at my new apartment. Many a craftsman's lockup in Rome is overrun by children; it may be fine if you only want to buy a bronze tripod with satyrs' feet, but people dislike being interviewed about their life-or-death problems while an energetic baby hurls porridge at their knees.

Thirdly, for the first time ever I could view all this without much urgent concern. Anacrites and I had achieved so much in our work for the Great Census that I had no pressing financial worries.

Yet that in itself was disturbing. I would need to get used to it. For the past eight years, since I had persuaded the army that it wanted to release me from legionary service, I had lived in fear of starvation and being thrown on the street by my landlord. I had once felt unable to marry, for dread of dragging others down with me. I had lived in filth. I lacked leisure and intellectual refinement. I had been forced into work that was dangerous and demeaning. So I drank, dreamed, lusted, complained, conspired, wrote gauche poetry, and did all that informers are reckoned to do by those who insult them. Then in Britain, on my first mission for Vespasian, I had met a girl.

For a man who sneered at snooty women, I had thrown myself into wooing Helena Justina with a wholeheartedness that appalled my friends. She was a senator's daughter and I was a street rat. Our relationship seemed impossible-a wondrous attraction to a fellow who liked challenges. She at first hated me: another lure. I even thought I hated her: ridiculous.

The story of how we came to live as we did now, so much more closely and companionably than most people (more, especially, than my turmoiled clients) would fill a few scrolls for your library. That Helena loved me was one mystery. That, even though she cared, she chose to endure my way of life was even stranger. We had lived for short periods in my old apartment, the one Petronius now filled with his mighty frame when he forced himself to return for a night's sleep under the leaky tiles. We had briefly shared a rental in a building that was "accidentally" demolished by a crooked developer-fortunately when neither of us was at home. And now we lived in a three-room first-floor sublet, from which we had removed the obscene wall frescos and to which we imported our child's screams and our own laughter, but little else.

I had long harbored grandiose fantasies of owning a mansion-in a few decades, when I had time, money, energy, motive, and the name of a trustworthy real estate vendor (well, the last criterion ruled it out!). More recently Helena Justina had talked of acquiring somewhere spacious enough for us to share with her younger brother, whom we liked, and whose young lady (if she stuck with him) was as pleasant as we could hope for. I was not sure I liked anyone enough to endure a joint tenure of my home. Apparently, it was a closer possibility than I had thought.

"While we have the mule cart on hire," Helena announced, looking only slightly sheepish, "we could drive out tomorrow and look at this house I bought."