Of course I knew what I was witnessing. A girl with money had got into trouble with a lover. Taking a friend for support, she had come to the brothel in order to end her problem with the aid of the abortionist. The Bower of Venus was bound to possess one.
I could have lived with that. Desperate people are entitled to risk their lives if it seems less harsh than the alternative.
What made me sick was that despite their caution I recognised those women. One was short and sturdy with a self-confident walk; one taller and straight-backed. The first was my sister Maia. And the other was Helena.
LIX
They were in there for a long time. I wanted to rush in after them. Instead I remained at my post, brooding horrendously.
When they came out, it was hurriedly. The door slammed behind them. They took a few quick steps, then stood in heated discussion. I strode across to them.
‘Oh gods, not still hanging around brothels!’ Maia shrieked.
‘Oh you’re here!’ exclaimed Helena, with what sounded like relief. Her tone was urgent, tense, yet ill-fitting the situation I had been conjuring up.
I was staring at Helena as she hugged her cloak around her. The girl I had loved – no; did love. With my sister, the only one I had been able to tolerate. ‘I’m on surveillance.’
Helena compressed her mouth slightly. I realised I had hardly seen her for the past two days. This morning I had left the house before she woke. Only a dirty tunic on the back of the door would have told her I came in last night.
‘Helena, I’m doing what’s important. You know that.’
‘No I don’t know!’ She actually stamped her foot. ‘I have not seen you to talk to since the day before yesterday. I wanted to talk to you –’
‘I realise that.’ Something was wrong here. Helena knew it too. We looked at each other in some trouble. My face seemed to have turned to wood. Anxiety and irritation jostled in hers. I croaked, ‘Are you all right?’
‘We were very frightened, but it’s better now.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
It was Maia who understood first. Quick-witted and caustic, she had interpreted my clenched fists. She rammed her cloak back abruptly, so her dark curls jumped up. Her eyes were flashing. ‘Juno Matrona! Helena Justina, this unforgivable bastard thinks you’ve just had a bodkin job!’
‘Oh thanks, Maia.’ Everything took a very nasty lurch. ‘Always there with the fine and fluent phrase!’
‘How could you, brother?’
I felt sick. ‘Something Famia said.’
‘I’ll kill him!’ Maia grated through her teeth. ‘Then I’ll kill you for believing him!’ While Helena still looked bewildered, my sister stormed off, yelling back, ‘I’ll take Galla, I’ll leave you the chair. Give my brother a good kicking, then for all our sakes, Helena, talk to him!’
* * *
I closed my eyes while the world rocked.
‘We’ve commandeered a place to watch from. Will you come inside?’
‘Is that an apology?’ Helena was starting to appreciate she had the right to feel insulted. I could see a faint gleam in her huge brown eyes that meant she was enjoying power. Dimly, at the corner of my vision, I was aware of Maia dragging my sister Galla from the litter and marching her away.
‘What in Hades is Galla doing here with you?’ I stormed. Then I warned feebly, ‘You gave me a bad fright. I’m in no condition to be whipped.’ Helena was staring at me. She looked tired and despondent. Presumably I had contributed to that. I hung my head. I was ready to try any tricks. ‘I love you, Helena.’
‘Trust me then!’ she snapped. Then she softened and offered her cheek for a formal kiss of greeting; I gave her a meek peck. As I drew back her face changed, crumpling slightly as if everything was becoming too much for her. ‘Oh stop being stupid and hold me tight!’ she cried.
Reprieve.
* * *
‘Actually,’ she said, once I had hugged her fiercely and taken her indoors, ‘I was trying to save a child.’ I received the rebuke like a man, hiding my wince. ‘The people who have Tertulla sent another message yesterday –’
‘Yesterday?’
‘I wanted to discuss it, Marcus; you gave me no chance!’ Apprehensive and annoyed with myself, I managed to signal yet another apology. Even I was growing bored with being abject. Helena growled, then herself owned up, ‘I decided I must do something, for the child’s sake.’
‘Note the calm manner in which I hear this news, Helena.’
‘Full credit for an understanding nature.’ She could tell I was boiling over with anxiety.
‘So instead of alerting the vigiles, you brought a couple of female bodyguards and came to ransom the child yourself?’
‘What choice did we have?’
‘Knowing the address they work from, Petro could have mounted a raid.’
‘They would have hidden the child and denied all knowledge. I’m not some frightened magistrate; I was going to report them once we had got Tertulla back.’
I kept my voice level. ‘So you gave them the money and of course they kept the bargain?’ I had seen no sign of Tertulla.
Helena shook her head despondently. ‘No. I kept the money. They told me she’s not there.’
‘They were lying. They realised you’re a tough customer who will land them in court.’
‘I don’t think so. They wanted the money. They were annoyed themselves. They say Tertulla must have run away. They can’t find her anywhere. I did believe them; they even let us search –’
I was horrified. ‘In the brothel?’
We were both silent for a while. Bravery had always been Helena’s strongest quality, but I knew what she must have undergone. Since she had escaped unscathed, there was no point screaming over it. ‘The Fates only know where Tertulla has got to. Are you angry, Marcus?’
‘No, but dear gods, it’s my turn now to be held tight!’
* * *
Time was passing. In the city streets a new, more bustling mood took over as the evening activity began. Men had bathed. The sleek and the sleazy were leaving their homes and their places of business. This lane was growing darker; not many lamps ever burned around here.
I would have to send Helena home soon. Now we had settled down, I was enjoying our short time together. I needed her. Being alone with Helena refreshed me. Even in a tense situation I could open up, be frank, put aside the caution that must always be present with anyone else. While I was on duty with Martinus, I had to disguise my own intentions and to stalk his ambition. With Helena I soon felt clear-headed again.
‘I suppose,’ I ventured thoughtfully, ‘you didn’t see a man with a balding pate and self-deluding eyes, who looks as if he sells embroidery that will fall apart?’
‘I tried to avoid the men.’ I bet plenty of men stared at her.
‘Oh good! A girl who ignores brothel etiquette.’
‘Do you want me to go back and try to spot this man?’ she asked. Always keen for adventure. The thought made me sweat with anxiety.
Luckily my stomach gave an enormously loud rumble. I confessed how little I had eaten that day. Helena Justina decided that although looking in the brothel for Balbinus would be a boon to the state, it had been superseded by her domestic responsibilities. She marched off to buy me some food.
As I ate, Helena was adding details to the map I had drawn. Martinus came back while I was still working through her lavish supplies, but I continued to munch without a conscience. Martinus had been missing so long I had a good idea the deputy had shamelessly found himself a full dinner before he visited Rubella. ‘So what’s the tribune going to do for us?’
‘Bad news, Falco. Rubella’s sole interest is the fact that this street lies in the Sixth Cohort’s empire.’
‘He wants to bring them in? That’s ridiculous. I don’t trust the Sixth.’
‘Well, Rubella intends to discuss things with the Prefect before he’ll authorise a raid
–’
‘Rubella’s a fool.’
‘His plan is to go in tomorrow.’
‘That’s a plan I’d like – if it was tonight.’
Helena was still sitting quietly at my side. ‘What about Petronius?’ she asked.
‘Oh hadn’t you heard?’ Martinus looked quite cheerful, so I knew it would be bad news. ‘He’s off watch. There was an attack on the patrol house yesterday night. The fire-watchers were all out on a false alarm, but the chief was in there working. Someone rammed the joint with the old “runaway cart” trick – a cart full of rocks and rubble. Brought down half the doorway, but the back part of the building stood up to it and Petronius escaped injury. Rubella reckons it was a direct attempt to get the chief. He thinks Balbinus was behind it, so he’s declared Petro sick and sent him to the country.’
‘He won’t take kindly to that.’
‘He handed in his resignation.’
‘Oh Jupiter!’ For a calm man, my friend could do some pig-headed things.
Martinus grinned. ‘Rubella broke the tablet in half and handed it straight back.’ The tribune had some sense then. But it meant tackling Plato’s without our best man. ‘While I was on the Aventine I did speak to a few of the lads,’ hinted the deputy.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sergius and four or five others may be along later.’
‘Four or five? Out of the question,’ I replied at once. ‘We can’t go into Plato’s without saturation coverage. Tell them not to bother.’
‘Tell them yourself!’ retorted Martinus. He sounded petulant. Then someone tapped discreetly on the counter and I found myself looking into the ridiculously handsome face of the whip man, Sergius. He had a long head, with a strong nose and chin, and flashing, even teeth. He was staring at Helena; she fixed her attention on counting the olive stones I had left after my repast.
Events were moving faster than I liked. They were out of control. With a thug like Balbinus that could have fatal results.
Behind Sergius were several other men from the Fourth. At least now I knew that Petro had been sent on a goat-grazing holiday I could forget that they might have sneaked here in some mood of disloyalty to him. They were defying Rubella; I could allow that.
What I would not accept was any kind of crackbrained exercise against orders, without planning or backup, and really without a full reconnaissance. I was determined to resist Martinus on this. Not that my common sense came to anything. The lads, as he called them (though they were large, fit and ugly apart from Sergius), had piled into the Oily Jug like schoolboys invading a pastry shop. I was groaning and trying to say goodbye to Helena, so it was Sergius who spotted the development. He hissed, and quickly snuffed our lamp.
I heard the noise he had noticed. Two pairs of feet walking briskly in concert, accompanied by the disturbing chinks of heavy chains. They came from the direction of the Circus. The feet stamped with a cheerful energy in thick-soled, businesslike boots.
The men those feet carried so purposefully were known to most of us. They were Tibullinus and Arica, the centurion and his sidekick from the Sixth – two upstanding officers whom we all believed were taking bribes. They were marching into Plato’s like conquering hunters, carrying on their shoulders a long pole of spoils. Suspended from the pole in chains was a male figure I recognised.
‘Oh gods!’ murmured Martinus. ‘I forgot to tell him we’re the Fourth. He’s gone and taken his damned chitty to the Sixth.’
The trussed man was Igullius. He looked alive – but only just.
‘Scatter!’
I heard my voice without expecting it. Somehow I made them all jump from the Oily Jug before the two men from the Sixth came out again to look for us. We managed to whip out of sight around a corner just in time, and heard a commotion as a group from the brothel turned over the dump we had left. Helena had had the sense to bring the still-warm bowl from which I had eaten my food. Tibullinus must have thought Martinus and I had gone home much earlier. They gave up after a short time, and retreated back to Plato’s.
We were still there, however. And naturally there was just one thought on the rash deputy’s mind: ‘They’ve got Igullius. If they don’t know our plans already, he’ll soon squeal to them. We have no time. Balbinus will be leaving any minute.’
‘Helena –’
Helena turned and banged the map we had drawn against my chest. Her voice was taut. ‘Don’t apologise again. I don’t want the last thing I remember to be you saying you were sorry. Oh don’t explain. I know!’ she raged. ‘You’ve lost your surprise; you have no support; no one knows if the man you want is even in the brothel – but you’re going in!’
LX
I took charge.
I passed the map around quickly and told them to get in without fuss, then disperse through the building fast. Forget thieves. Forget hard men. Forget even Tibullinus and Arica. Say nothing and hit no one, unless there was no choice. Save Igullius if it were possible, but keep filtering through towards the top and the back and the farthermost rooms of the brothel until we found Balbinus Pius.
‘What then?’
‘Yell your head off for the rest of us.’
I like to keep plans simple. At least when this went wrong there would be only a minor body count. Only seven of us were going in.
* * *
We slipped inside in ones and twos. Paid the tally and winked at the doorkeeper.
‘I’m Itia, and I’m here to see you enjoy yourselves.’
‘Thanks, Itia.’
‘Are you being joined by friends tonight?’
‘Just a few.’
‘Maybe we’ll give you a discount then.’
I was right. The brothel side of the business was reserving its position. But I did not imagine our discount would take the form of help.
I had gone in first. I walked quickly but with a casual manner. I went straight past the ground-floor rooms, the cloak pegs and the washing facilities. There was a louder hum of masculinity than on previous times I had visited. From the big room where conspirators gathered came a full-throated wave of men drinking and talking. I did not look in. He would not be there, amongst the throng.
The place was already warm and hazy with lamp oil and taper smoke. Further on it seemed quiet. Once, something attracted attention. I stepped into a room and found normal commerce in action. The girl was in the saddle. I quipped, ‘Glad to see you’re on top of things!’ and whipped the door shut on them.
Reaching stairs I started climbing. At the landing I paused to listen. Behind me all sounded normal. No shouts of alarm. Martinus and the others must so far be undiscovered. It would not last.
Still no sign of Tibullinus and Arica. I opened more doors, more gently this time. I found either empty rooms or flesh trade of one kind or another. More kinds than I had ever heard of in fact, though I had no time to make detailed notes.
The brothel seemed busy, but not in flourishing party mode. No one stopped me. No one even challenged my presence. Balbinus would have guards, the Miller for instance. I would have to get past them; I had not even seen them yet.
The longer I was in there, the more urgent became my feeling that I needed to escape. I had come so far that if anything went wrong, fighting my way out would be impossible. I had been a spy scouting in hostile citadels many times before, but then I had stood some chance of disguising my identity. I was too well known here. Helena had been right. We were probably walking into a trap. My skin crawled as I began to feel the certainty that someone was fully expecting me.
There was a faint odour of incense in the air. I thought I recognised my location. I hit a wider corridor, where I remembered that the rooms were grander, though I felt no need to investigate now. I could hear music. I discerned light, and laughing voices. My stride increased. At the last moment memory failed me and without warning I crashed into the large room with the sunken entertainment area where Petro and I had reckoned orgies might be staged. I pulled up short, facin
g the certainty that something grossly pornographic had either been enacted in the recent past or was about to take place. As the braziers wreathed, burning an exotic fuel, the atmosphere hit me in the gullet; the inescapable message was that nobody who entered here would want to plead he was too honest to participate.
Candelabra stood all around the upper seating bank. Garlands of roses and other musky flowers coiled and writhed from every surface. There was a small band of musicians idly tuning up: a hand drum, panpipes, tambourines and a curled flute. The musicians wore pleasingly friendly expressions and diagonal wisps of seethrough drape. A smiling man in satyr’s costume approached – the full gear of hairy trousers, goat hooves, highly visible naked working parts. His face, with its paint and fragile smile, was a disturbing contrast to the prominent masculine attribute. He gestured a welcome to me with a dreamy air. In the centre of the floor four exquisite young girls, none of them older than fifteen, were performing warm-up stretches with a languid grace that spoke all too strongly of the nature of their act. They wore no clothes, even before their tableau commenced.
On the outer rim, men waited. Some tasted wine; others prodded at the serving staff or picked their teeth.
Opposite me stood the doorway that led to Lalage’s rooms. There was another door. Either side of it were two long torches thrust into waist-high urns, blazing with a sweet odour of something akin to applewood. Before it lay an irregular, striped mat, the skin of some dead carnivore. To one side an extremely muscular man was chatting up a stripling who was holding a bronze ewer.
The music started. The audience stirred with a low ripple of lecherous anticipation. My eyes went automatically to the floor area. It was time to leave or be seduced. I had made my choice.
I walked around the edge of the room, as if searching for a space to sit. As I came to the door with the braziers I was keeping my eyes fixed on the slow and intricate patterns being wrought by the gleaming bodies of the quartet of girls. All around me were the heated faces of men looking shy while they fervently hoped we would soon reach that moment when a member of the acrobatic display would call for a volunteer from the audience.
Time to Depart Page 33
