Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

'Squeezing me?'

'You're good-natured and you love Rome.'

'What an appalling responsibility.'

'So did you accept the Censors' ruling?' I asked, chuckling slightly.

'Not entirely. The first option was to protest – which meant I would have to put in a lot of effort and expense producing receipts and leases for the Censors to laugh at. The second option was to pay up quietly; then they would meet me halfway.'

'A bribe!' cried Helena.

Her father looked shocked; anyway, he made a pretence of it. 'Helena Justina, nobody bribes the Emperor.'

'Oh, a compromise,' she snorted angrily.

Feeling cramped with three on the bench, I stood up and went to investigate the garden fountain on a nearby wall: a spluttery drunken Silenus pouring feebly from a wineskin. The poor old god had never been up to much; today his flow was being additionally obstructed by a fig which had dropped from a tree trained to grow against the sunny wall. I fished out the fruit. The gurgle resumed slightly more strongly.

'Thanks.' The senator tended to put up with things that failed to work. I strolled to a fancy border, where last year's pot lilies had been planted out. They were struggling against beetle, their leaves bitten and badly stained with rust. They weren't flowering, and would be seriously ailing next season. Lily beetles are bright red and easily outwitted, so I was able to knock some off on to the palm of my hand, then drop them on to the paving where I flattened them under my boot.

Checking the result of my work on the fountain, I told the senator about the dismembered hand. I knew he had paid for private access to one of the aqueducts. 'Our supply seems pretty clean,' he said. 'It comes from the Aqua Appia.'

'Same as the Aventine fountains,' I warned.

'I know. They receive priority. I pay a huge premium, but the rules are strict for private householders.'

'The water board regulates your quantity?'

'The board gives me an officially approved calix let into the base of a water tower.'

'Can't you bend it a bit and increase the flow?'

'All private access pipes are made from bronze to prevent their being illegally enlarged – though I believe people do try.'

'How big is your pipe?'

'Only a quinaria.' Just over a digit in diameter. The smallest, but given an uninterrupted flow day and night sufficient for a reasonable household. Camillus had no spare cash. He was the kind of millionaire who seriously needed to economise.

'Too small for objects to come floating down,' Helena commented.

'Yes, thank goodness. We get a lot of sand, but the thought of receiving body parts is decidedly unpleasant.' He warmed to his theme. 'If there were loose debris in the aqueduct my calix could become blocked inside the water tower. I might not complain immediately; private houses are always the first to be cut off if there's a problem. I suppose that's fair.' Camillus was always tolerant. 'I can't see the water board admitting that they'd found something unhygienic inside the castellum. I imagine I'm being supplied with sparkling water straight from the Caerulean Spring – but is the stuff from the aqueducts really safe to drink?'

'Stick to wine,' I advised him. Which reminded us to go indoors to dine.

When we passed through the folding doors to the dining room we found a more formal spread than was usual here, so fatherhood brought some benefits. There were seven adults dining. I kissed the cheek of Julia Justa, Helena's mother, a proud, polite woman who managed not to flinch. I greeted her arrogant elder son Aelianus with a mock sincerity that I knew would annoy him, then gave an unfeigned grin to the tall, more slightly built figure of his brother Justinus.

As well as the entire Camillus family and myself, there was Claudia Rufina, a smart but rather solemn young girl Helena and I had brought over from Spain who was staying here because we had no guest bed to offer her. She was of provincial birth but good family, and would be welcome in all but the snobbiest homes, since she was of marriageable age and sole heiress to a large fortune. Helena and I greeted her kindly. We had introduced Claudia to the Camilli in the flagrant hope that this could be their route to a villa at Neapolis at last.

So it might prove: we heard that she had already agreed to a betrothal. The Camilli must possess a ruthless streak. Less than a week after Helena and I had delivered this reserved young woman to their house, they had offered her Aelianus.

Claudia, who knew him from the time he had spent in Spain, had been brought up to be a good-mannered guest – and Julia Justa had not let her meet any other young men – so she had meekly agreed. A letter had been despatched to her grandparents inviting them to Rome to seal the arrangements straight away. Things had happened so fast it was the first we had heard of it.

'Olympus!' cried Helena.

'I'm sure you will both be extraordinarily happy,' I managed to croak. Claudia looked sweetly pleased by this concept, as if nobody had led her to think her well-being came into it.

They would be as miserable together as most couples, but were rich enough to have a large house where they could avoid one another. Claudia, a quiet girl with a rather big nose, was dressed in white in mourning for her brother, the intended heir, who had been killed in an accident; she probably welcomed something new to think about. Aelianus wanted to enter the Senate, for which he needed money; he would go along with anything. Besides, he was crowing over Justinus, his better-looking and more popular younger brother.

Justinus himself only smiled, shrugged, and looked mildly curious, like a sweet-tempered lad who wondered what the fuss was all about. I had once worked closely with him abroad. His vague air was masking a broken heart; he had fallen heavily for a blonde visionary prophetess in the forests or barbarian Germany (though once back in Rome he had swiftly consoled himself by starting an even more impossible liaison with an actress). Quintus Camillus Justinus always looked as if he didn't know the way to the Forum – but he had hidden depths.

The evening Passed off so peacefully that when we were dawdling home in the litter, ignoring the grumblings of the bearers who had expected me to walk alongside, Helena felt drawn to comment: 'I hope you noticed the transformation, now we have produced a child?'

'How's that?'

Her great brown eyes danced with complicity. 'Nobody takes the slightest notice of you and me. Not one person asked us when we were going to find somewhere better to live -'

'Or when I would be starting a decent job -'

'Or when the formal wedding was to be -'

'If I'd have known all it took was a baby I would have borrowed one long ago.'

Helena surveyed Julia. Worn out by several hours of accepting adulation, she was sleeping deeply. In about another hour, just as I nodded off in bed, all that would change. Most informers stay unmarried. This was one of the reasons. On the other hand, a night-time surveillance in some street away from home – even if it contained a tannery and an illegal fish-pickle still and was infested with garlic-eating prostitutes whose pimps carried butcher's knives – was starting to offer unexpected attractions. A man who knows how to prop himself up can doze quite refreshingly in a shop portico.

'What about Aelianus and Claudia?' asked my beloved. 'Your mild-mannered parents have the knack of taking prompt action.'

'I hope it works.' She sounded neutral; that meant she felt concerned.

'Well, she said yes. Your father is a fair man, and your mother wouldn't let Aelianus be trapped if it was likely to go wrong.' They needed Claudia's money badly, however. After a moment I asked quietly, 'When you were married to that bastard Pertinax, what did your mother have to say?'