Lindsey Davis - One Virgin Too Many

Berenice responded at once to the cue. (So the rumors were true; she had taken over the domestic keys already…) Rubies flashed as she waved a languid hand to call for sustenance for me. Helena beamed thanks in her direction.

"No luck?" Titus asked me. He looked very keen for a reassuring answer.

"No sign of her, unfortunately," Helena said. Trays of dainties had arrived. I started to pick at them; Helena weighed in like a food taster, then selected from the silver bowls and popped morsels into my mouth almost as fast as I could deal with them. Fortunately, my well-wound toga stopped me slumping. Propped up in its hot woollen swathes, I succumbed to being tended like an invalid. This was nice. A comfortable palace. Helena did the talking. There was plenty for me to stare around at while I let her run the interview.

I wondered what the home life of the imperial family would be like nowadays: young Domitian, aping Augustus seizing Livia, had snatched a married woman and announced himself married to her; that was after seducing every senator's wife he could persuade to favor him-before his father came home and clipped his wings. Titus (once divorced, once widowed) had now been joined-perhaps unexpectedly-by his exotic royal piece. Vespasian had previously lived openly with an extremely astute freedwoman. Antonia Caenis, my late patroness (was it coincidence that Berenice had delayed her arrival in Rome until after the death of Vespasian's sensible, influential concubine?). There were a couple of very young female relations-Titus' daughter, Julia, and a Flavia. Vespasian himself had now decamped to live in the Gardens of Sallust in the north of the city, near his old family house. But even without the old man, communal breakfasts must be riveting affairs.

"I suppose your father must have considered whether to continue with the Vestals' lottery?" Helena was asking Titus.

"Well, we feel there is no choice about tomorrow. There are twenty perfectly good candidates-"

"Nineteen," I mumbled, between mouthfuls.

"Gaia Laelia may yet be found safe and well!" Titus reproved me.

"One other little girl has had to be withdrawn," Helena informed him calmly. "Her father died." Titus pulled up, seeing she knew more about this than he did. "If the lottery is held," Helena explained for the Queen's benefit, "all the candidates must be present. It is essential that when the Pontifex Maximus selects a name, he can continue with the ritual: he must then take the girl by the hand, welcome her with the ancient declaration-and remove her at once from her family to her new home in the Vestals' House."

The Queen listened, making no comment, but watching with dark, heavily etched eyes. I wondered what she made of us. Had Titus told her who he had sent for? If so, how did he describe us? Did she expect this low-born man with tired limbs and chin stubble, bossed into easy submission by a cool creature who spoke to the Emperor's son like one of her own brothers?

Helena continued to include the Queen: "We are talking about a symbolic ceremony in which the chosen girl leaves the authority of her own family, and abandons all her possessions as a member of that family, then becomes a child of Vesta. Her hair is shaved off and hung on a sacred tree-though of course, it is afterwards allowed to grow again; she dons the formal attire of a Vestal Virgin, and from that day begins her training. If the chosen child were not present when her name was called, it would be very awkward."

"Impossible," said Titus.

I chewed thoughtfully on a lobster dumpling. Tut, tut; the chef had left a piece of shell. I removed it with a pained expression, as if I expected better here.

"I thought Rutilius Gallicus was your commissioner in the search for Gaia Laelia?" Helena asked Titus, perhaps reproving him for interference. I caught the eye of the young Caesar and smiled faintly. Time was, he had had me on the hop whenever he summoned me to a meeting. Well, I was respectable now; I could bring along my talented, well-bred girlfriend to defend me like a gladiator's trainer choreographing a fight.

She had waved up an attendant with a wine flagon, but when the boy reached us, she took the vessel from him and poured my drink herself. The attendant looked startled. Helena flashed him a smile, and he jumped back, unaccustomed to acknowledgment.

"Yes, well…" Titus was hedging. I had always reckoned he could be devious, so this was unlike him. I sipped the wine. Helena leaned forwards, as if waiting to hear what Titus had to say. Her flimsy stole had slipped down her back. Curled tendrils of her hair wafted on her neck. I reached out my free hand and tugged one of the soft tendrils so she sat nearer to me again. In defiance of protocol, I put my arm around her.

"Some extra dimension, Caesar?" Now the authoritative tone was mine. I thought Berenice sharpened her gaze slightly, wondering whether Helena would accept my takeover. She did, of course. The refined and elegant Helena Justina knew that if she gave me any trouble I was going to tickle her neck until she collapsed in fits.

"This is rather sensitive, Falco." It would be. I might be Procurator of the Sacred Geese, but I remained the fixer who was given all the rough jobs. "I just want to beg you to do all you can."

"Marcus will continue until he has found the child." Long practiced, Helena had worked free of my restraining arm.

"Yes, of course." Titus looked submissive. Then he looked at Berenice. She seemed to be waiting for something; he seemed embarrassed. He admitted, "There has been some bad feeling about the Queen and me."

I inclined my head politely. At my side, Helena took my hand. Surely, she cannot have imagined I would say something rude? The man was in love. It was sad to watch.

"Ridiculous!" scoffed Titus. In his eyes, Berenice could do no wrong, and anyone who suggested there were problems was being unkind and irrational. He should have known better-as his father had done, when Berenice first tried her wiles on the old man himself.

The lovers were insulated here; they might have convinced themselves everything was fine. This would carry Titus through a great deal of public disapproval. But he would have to face the truth when Vespasian himself decided to bust up the love nest.

Murmurs of discontent must have already reached the romantic pair. "As you may know," Titus told me in a firm, formal voice, as if he were speech-making, "the last time the missing child, Gaia Laelia, was seen publicly was at a reception which was given to allow all the young lottery candidates to meet Queen Berenice."

"Gaia Laelia spent part of the afternoon on the Queen's lap," I said. "I'm glad you raised this, Caesar-I understand there was some kind of commotion?"

"You are well informed, Falco!"

"My contacts are everywhere." He thought about that. I regretted saying it.

"This may be important," Helena said to Berenice. "Can you tell us what the fuss was?"

"No." Titus answered for the Queen. "All the girl talked about was her pleasure in being selected-I mean, being subjected to the lottery."

I was beginning to wonder if Berenice lacked Latin. However, this was the woman who, while sharing the Judaean kingdom with her incestuous brother, had once protested volubly against the barbarity of a Roman governor in Jerusalem; she was a fearless orator who had appealed for clemency for her people barefoot, though in danger of her life. She could speak out when she wanted to.

And now she did. Ignoring Titus studiously, she appeared to override his instructions to keep her mouth shut: "The child was rather quiet. After I seemed to win her confidence, she suddenly exclaimed, 'Please let me stay here. There is a mad person at home who is going to kill me!' I was alarmed. I thought the child herself must be crazy. Attendants came forward immediately and took her away."