Lindsey Davis - One Virgin Too Many

Out into the kitchen garden went the dog. Past the seat where so little time ago I had been talking to Terentia. Through the newly dug beds, under the despoiled pergolas, into the brambles and tangled creepers that ran back to the high wall.

Yesterday we were supposed to have searched everywhere, even here. Slaves with scythes had hacked at the creepers. I had trodden down parts of the undergrowth myself. I had told some of the helpers to crawl into the thickets.

Not good enough, Falco. There was a place where an angle of the boundary wall turned away. Bushes shielded it from obvious view nowadays, but it had once had a purpose. In fairness to me, I had seen someone else exploring this area yesterday. But it is never safe to rely on other people. In a real emergency, you must double-check every inch of ground yourself. Never mind if your helpers grow fractious because it looks as if you do not trust them. Never mind if you exhaust yourself. Nobody else is truly trustworthy. Not even when, like you, they know a child's life is at stake.

Nux was going crazy now. She had reached a small clearing, where stonework had defied the encroaching undergrowth. This might be where Nux had found the mop. Gaia had definitely been playing here. Somehow, she had even managed to make herself a fire. Perhaps she spent hours rubbing sticks together to do it; more likely she took some embers from the burning garden rubbish nearer the house. The ashes of her mock Vestal fire, cold now, of course, formed a neat circle. They were quite clearly different from the great mounds of garden clippings, and if anyone had shown me these yesterday, I would have tracked down the child there and then.

I spotted a kitchen pitcher, lying on its side.

Nux ran to the pitcher, sniffed at it, then ran past and lay down with her nose between her paws, whining frantically.

"Well done, Nuxie; I'm coming."

I could see what had happened. Little hands had pulled back a curtain of weeds to discover an old flight of four or five shallow stone steps. Ferns grew in crevices and green slime lurked on the lower slabs. Anyone familiar with springs would realize that this had once been a source of water, though it must have been an inconvenient distance from the house. Even a six-year-old girl, if she was bright and capable, would work out what she had found; then, forbidden to trouble the kitchen staff, she might try to see if she could fill her pitcher here. The steps led to the head of a well shaft. When it went out of use, it must have been boarded over. Over the years, the boards had rotted. So when Gaia tried to move them or walk on them, some gave way and fell into the shaft. Gaia must have gone down with them.

I knelt at the edge. I leaned over too far, and a sharp rattle of stones frightened me; the edge was crumbling perilously. All I could see was darkness. I called out. Silence. She had drowned or been killed by the fall. Nux began to bark again, with that terrible sharp yowking noise. I gripped the dog and held her. I could feel under her warm rib cage that she was panting as fast as I. My heart was breaking.

"Gaia!" I yelled down the echoing shaft.

And then from the impenetrable darkness a faint whimper answered me.

I was still debating how to get help when a voice nearby cried my name.

"Aulus! Over here-quickly."

My new partner might be a spoiled, surly senator's son, but he knew how to stick with the most urgent job in hand. Alone of the crowd in the atrium he had bothered to follow me. I heard him curse as he crashed towards me through the bushes, snagging his tunic or scratching himself on thorns.

"Gently," I warned in a low voice, before I turned back and called down, "Gaia! Don't move. We're here now."

Aelianus had reached me. He took in the situation rapidly, pointed downwards with his index finger to ask if that was where the child was, then silently grimaced.

"We need help," I groaned. "We need Petronius Longus. Only the vigiles are equipped for this. I want you to go and fetch them. I'll stay with the child and try to keep her calm. Tell Petro the situation." I was crouched back at the shaft, examining it. "Say this: The well looks deep; the child sounds a long way down; she is alive, but very weak. I reckon she has been down there over two days. Someone will have to go down to her. It looks a pig's arse."

"Very difficult?" interpreted Aelianus primly.

"We need ropes primarily, but also any other useful equipment the vigiles can come up with."

"Lights," he suggested

"Yes. Above all, we need the stuff fast."

"Right." He was moving off.

"Aulus, listen-I want you to go yourself. Don't be sidetracked at the house."

"I won't go that way," he said. "Leg me up. I'll shin over this wall. Then I'll be in the street and straight off."

"Good thinking. You're almost at the Fourth Cohort headquarters." I started giving him directions while we tackled shunting him up and over the tall wall at the end of the property. He was no lightweight. Next time I chose a partner I would go for a thin, half-starved one.

"Jove! Falco, this job of yours seems to consist entirely of climbing into and out of places…"After a few groans and compaints he was off. I heard him thump down on the other side, then his footsteps at once ran off. He was certainly athletic. He must exercise somewhere, some rich boys' gym with a high joining fee and a fitness instructor who looked like a Greek god slathered in dripping.

I should have known somebody else would not miss out on a crisis: Anacrites was the next to turn up. I showed him the layout, told him not to cause panic, and asked him to go back indoors and fetch torches.

"And ropes, surely, Falco."

"If you can find any. Not much hope of it as a Flamen Dialis is forbidden to see anything that indicates binding. But ask the builders to bring out any wood they have that could be used for supports."

He pottered off. Sometimes he was sensible. In an hour or two he might find me an oil lamp and a piece of string.

I sat down by the well, Nux fretting beside me; I began to talk in a reassuring voice to the invisible Gaia. "Don't answer, sweetheart. I'm just talking to you so you know that I'm still here. People have gone to fetch equipment so we can lift you out."

I was starting to wonder how we could do that. The more I viewed the situation, the more difficult it looked.

I heard the welcome voice of Petronius Longus on the far side of the wall just as Anacrites returned. It had seemed an age. Soon the vigiles were raising ladders. Anacrites shouted out to them, then he joined me. We were about two feet below ground level, on the last step. He had brought out a couple of flares, ready lit, and one short length of filthy rope that the builders had been using for some halfhearted purpose. Straightaway I tied one of the torches to the end of the rope and tried lowering it down the well. I had to stand, leaning forwards above the shaft. Anacrites lay out flat beside me, peering over into the murk.

"The side walls are in bad condition. Keep going," he urged. The flickering light revealed only a small area. When the rope was all played out we still had not seen Gaia. "Not good news," muttered Anacrites in a low voice to me. He sat up again, but he stayed there, ready for another go. His tunic was covered with dirt. Ma would have a good flap over that when he went home. Still, he could say he had been out with her rascal son.

Petronius had come up behind me, almost silently. He gave no greeting. He made no jokes. He walked to the far side, looking down from above us. He whistled once, very quietly to himself; then he stood still, assessing the problem. Some of his men lined up with him. Aelianus appeared too. He passed me more rope, which I knotted onto the torchline. I continued lowering it slowly while the others watched.