A Body in the Bathhouse

by Lindsey Davis

  She came nearer. The entranced crowd parted for her. The smiling musicians slipped to their feet lightly, tracing her progress through the room so they neither lost sight of her nor left her insecure and unattended. Her hair came loose, a deliberate part of the act no doubt, so she swirled it free with a deep toss of her head. This was no slim and devious New Carthage beauty with a tumbling sheen of oiled, inky locks, but a mature woman. She might be a grandmother. She was aware of her maturity and challenging us to notice too. She was the queen of the room because she had lived more than most of us. If her joints creaked, nobody would know it. And unlike the crude offers purveyed by younger artists, Perella was giving us—because she had nothing else to give—the erotic, ecstatic, uplifting, imaginative glory of hope and possibility.

  The musicians strove to a high climax, their instruments at breaking point. Perella twirled to an exhausted halt, right in front of me. Applause burst all around us. A hubbub rose; men called feverishly for drink to help them forget they had been overcome. Congratulatory grins surrounded the dancer, though she was left alone respectfully.

  She saw who I was. Perhaps she had stopped here deliberately. “Falco!”

  Helena teetered dangerously on the bench edge. I could not leap down and seize the dancer; I had to hold on to Helena. A Roman does not allow the well-bred mother of his children to tumble face-first on a disgusting tavern floor. Helena probably relied on that; she kept me with her on purpose. “Perella.”

  “I have a message for your sister,” she said.

  “Don’t try anything! Following my sister is a mistake, Perella—”

  “I’m not after your sister.”

  “I saw you at her house—”

  “Anacrites sent me there. He realized he went too far. He sent me to apologize.”

  “Apologize!”

  “A stupid move,” she admitted. “That was him, not me.” That is him dead then, I thought.

  “And what are you doing here?” I demanded accusingly.

  “Earning my fare home. You know the bureau: mean with expenses.”

  “You’re still following my sister.”

  “I don’t give two sleeve pins for your bloody sister—”

  A draft hit us. The noise dimmed for a moment as men sank their noses into beakers thirstily. The crowd in the outer door had moved to allow somebody admittance. It was someone whose manner always made men move aside for her. My sister walked in.

  A woman screamed.

  Helena was off that bench like a centipede fleeing the spade edge. Fighting through the press, she came to the curtained anteroom. It looked dark, but we could see flailing limbs. A foul hole in which to deflower a fool.

  Helena reached the couple first. She had slipped between the drinkers where my wider shoulders jammed. While I was discouraging those whose beakers I had jogged, Helena Justina broke in on Blandus as he attempted to rape the screaming Hyspale. I saw Helena tear down the hide curtain, heard her yell at him. I called out. Somewhere behind me, I was aware of her brothers shouting. Other men turned to watch the scene, impeding me more. As I battled on, Helena took hold of the inevitable amphora used to imply fancy decor; she heaved it up, swung it, and crashed it down on Blandus.

  He was tough. Now he was furious too. He threw himself off Hyspale and turned on Helena. He had grabbed her by the arms. I was desperate. Helena Justina was brought up to wear white, think clean thoughts, encounter nothing more exciting than a little light poetry read to her in a nice accent. Since she came to me, I had taught her good sense on the streets and where to kick intruders so it hurt—but she was no match for Blandus. Raging, publicly thwarted, still aroused, he went for her. She struggled. I struggled to reach them. Someone else got there ahead of me.

  Perella.

  “I’ll have no rape at my events!” she cried to Blandus. “It gives me a bad name.” I choked quietly.

  He was lucky. She did not knife him. Instead, she high-kicked one powerful dancer’s foot in a fine arc straight to his privates. When he doubled up, she grabbed him, twirled him around bodily, and showed him just how bendable his neck could be. Her strong hands reached down and did something horrible, once more to his nether regions. She thumped his ears, pulled his nose, and finally sent him flying into the barroom. Blandus had suffered enough, but he landed in a space right beside the mosaicist, Philocles Junior. Now that was bad luck. Philocles had reached the point in his evening where he was ready to revive old family feuds. …

  “Juno, I’m getting too old for all this,” Perella gasped.

  “Not as old as our caseload,” I taunted. “Marcellinus was crooked, but long out of it. There was a time an emperor might well have had him removed quietly. It would have saved money and curbed his corrupt influence on the King—but that was another world, Perella. Other emperors, with different priorities. So is Anacrites still following up correspondence that’s ten years out of date? Pointless, Perella!”

  “I just do what I’m ordered.” Perella did look sick. For a skilled operator to be dispatched on stupid missions by an inefficient clown like Anacrites must hurt.

  Helena was rescuing our nursemaid. As Hyspale sobbed hysterically, I flung my arms around Helena. She was too busy to need it, but I had not recovered from seeing her in Blandus’ clutches.

  A glimmer of silk slid by. I looked up and saw Perella had sashayed through the bar. She came face-to-face with Maia. She said something. Maia obviously scoffed at it.

  A violent flurry indicated new trouble. Verovolcus and his search party had worked their way to the Nemesis. Perella looked quickly at me. Instinctively I jerked my head. She needed no second warning. She was off through the crowd, who let her pass with gruff courtesy; then they closed in excitedly, hoping she would dance another set. Verovolcus had missed his chance. By the time he realized, Perella was hidden from view.

  I would be livid tomorrow that I let her escape. Tough.

  LIX

  MAIA FORGED her way to us.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Where are my children?” asked Helena.

  “Safe, of course. Fast asleep here, in beds in the Procurator’s house.” Maia was storming up to Hyspale. “Did he succeed?” she demanded of Helena.

  “Not quite.”

  “Stop bawling, then,” Maia rebuked Hyspale. She tweaked the red dress Hyspale was wearing. “It was your own fault. You have been stupid. Worse, you’ve been stupid wearing my best dress—which, believe me, you’re going to regret. You can take that off. You will take it off this minute and walk home in your undertunic.”

  Women can be so vindictive.

  I kept out of it. If terror of Blandus failed to educate Hyspale, maybe embarrassment would.

  In the main room, the men realized that Perella had left them. Uproar ensued. Verovolcus and some of the King’s retainers had found a man I recognized as Lupus. They were punishing him for his feud with the disgraced Mandumerus. His own men, to whom he had sold jobs so dearly, watched in cynical silence. No one offered help. Once he was pummeled into pulp, Verovolcus and the others disappeared through the back exit, clearly not searching for the lavatory. They never came back, so they must have galloped off. Others in the bar decided to vent their frustration on anyone available. Deprived of the dancer for entertainment, the different groups of site workers chose to thrash each other. We cowered in our nook as fists thumped cheekbones. Men were on the floor; others jumped on their backs, punching furiously. Some tried rescuing those who were down; they were attacked by the men they thought they were helping. Flagons went flying across the room. Beer was upended on the floor. Tables overturned.

  The trouble spilled out onto the street. That made space for more complex wrestling. We sat quiet and let it pass. I felt rough. I was cradling my cheek where my tooth now hurt so much I had to deal with it in the next few hours or I would die of blood poisoning.

  On the far side of the barroom, I could see the Camillus brothers. They had opted out of the
fight and were seated aloof at a table like minor deities, munching food and commentating. Aelianus held his wounded leg out stiffly. Justinus lifted up a dish to me, offering to share their victuals; refusing, I mimed dental anguish. The Camilli had been talking to a man at the next table; Justinus pointed to him with one finger, showing his own fangs. They had found the local tooth puller. Deafened, harassed by the turmoil around me, and in pain, I just wanted to die quietly.

  Suddenly the row diminished. As quickly as they had flared up, all the fights finished. Someone must have brought news of a good torch singer at yet another bar. Next minute our den was empty. The landlord was clearing broken pots. A few stragglers had their heads down on tables, looking ill, but something like peace descended. My womenfolk were gathering themselves to take us home. I could see the Camilli negotiating terms for late-night dentistry.

  A group of travelers, unaware of the mad scene they had missed, now entered and scanned the amenities.

  “Phwoar! This is a bad one!” cried a young boy’s voice. He sounded cheerful. He had a large shaggy dog with him, which was untrained and very excited.

  “It will have to do,” said someone else. I looked up.

  Into the Nemesis marched a strange party. Behind the boy came a big, quiet man, dressed all in brown, who rapidly checked around the place. He wore a heavy cloak with a pointed hood and a triangular storm flap at the neck. Good traveling gear, it went with solid boots and a satchel slung across his chest. With him were four children of various ages, each warmly dressed in similar style, with woolen socks inside their boots, and each with a bag. They looked clean, fit, well cared for, and probably enjoying life. The two boys needed haircuts, but the two girls had neat pigtails.

  Once inside, the youngsters clustered close to the man while all four children glared about, scanning the bar for undesirables exactly as he had done. He had them well drilled.

  “Whoops!” They had noticed Maia. This was more trouble than they had bargained for.

  “Look out, Uncle Lucius!”

  Ancus immediately hurtled straight across the bar and threw himself into his mother’s arms with a piteous cry. He was eight, but had always been a baby. Sensitive, she said.

  Maia’s eyes were slits. Carrying Ancus, she stepped towards the others and pointed to Petronius. “This man is not your uncle.”

  All four children stared at her.

  “He is now!” decided Rhea. The brutal, forthright, open one. Aged almost five, she spoke her mind like a ninety-year-old matriarch. My mother must have started out in life just like Rhea.

  “Let’s face it, Maia,” Petro drawled. “The very fact that they are yours makes the poor things uncontrollable.” He bent down to the three who were still beside him. “Go to your mother, quick, or we’re dead meat.”

  Marius, Cloelia, and Rhea trotted to Maia obediently, then held up their faces to be kissed. Maia stooped and put her arms around all of them. She turned her furious gaze on Petronius, but he got in first. “I did my best,” he told her quietly. “I brought them to you safely, and as quickly as I could. We would have been here sooner, but we all fell ill with chicken pox just north of—”

  “Cabilonnum,” supplied Cloelia, who must be the keeper of their travel notes. “Gaul.”

  Maia was lost for words, though being my sister this did not afflict her for long. Sick with wrath, she accused Petronius: “You have brought my children to a bar!”

  “Settle down, Mother,” advised Marius (the eleven-year-old authoritative one). “This is about the hundredth time. We’re slightly short of funds, so we make do. Uncle Lucius has taught us how to behave. We never question the prices, we don’t pull a knife on the landlord, and we don’t break up the joint.”

  LX

  THE TOOTH PULLER had a strange attitude. I thought he was drunk.

  I had gone with him alone. Had not Maia’s children wanted feeding—urgently, they all insisted—I could have escaped this. I would have preferred to exchange news with Petro, but he and I swapped a coded agreement to speak in private later. Since the tooth-man seemed willing to deal with a patient, everyone insisted that while the children tucked in at the Nemesis, I had to submit to dentistry. Playing brave, I rejected company. It is bad enough yelling in agony, without a helpful audience. Helena wanted to come with me, but I knew my ordeal would upset her terribly. I could cope with pain, but not that.

  The street outside the bar was oddly peaceful. Somewhere across town, I could hear raucous voices as the site team progressed between venues, but here by the Palace Gate all was at rest. Cool air soothed my temper. There was rain drifting in fine gusts. It could be nowhere but Britain.

  We entered the molar-man’s lair. It had wide doors, which he opened a bare crack, as if scared I would admit muggers with me. Inside, although he lit a lamp, its dwindling flame scarcely reached any distance. I felt my way to the seat where he would operate. I had to put my head back against a block of something cold and hard.

  “I heard you only opened up here recently?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You bought the place? Had it been some other business?”

  “Believe so.”

  I wondered what.

  He started to mix up a very large draft for me. Poppy juice in wine. Just looking at it made me feel I was bursting for a latrine visit; I managed to spill the beaker and avoid drinking most of it. He seemed anxious about that. The strong herbal scent of his medicine reminded me of the painkiller Alexas had prepared for Aulus with his dog bite.

  “I’m tough. Just hurry, will you?”

  He said we had to wait until the poppies took effect. I could understand that. He didn’t want his hand gnawed off.

  I lay there in the semidarkness, feeling myself relax. The tooth puller was pottering somewhere behind me, out of sight. Suddenly he reappeared to take a look in my mouth. I opened wide. He seemed awkward, as if I had somehow found him out.

  “It’s the old story,” he mumbled. “Too much grit in food. Breaks down the surface and trouble gets in. If you came to see me sooner, I could have filled the hole with alum or mastic—but it never lasts.” Even though what he was saying was all professional I felt myself losing confidence in him. “Do you want a slow extraction?”

  I gurgled, still with my mouth gaping. “Quick!”

  “Slow is best. Causes less damage.”

  I only wanted him to get on with it.

  Now my eyes were more accustomed to the Stygian gloom. The tooth puller was a skinny stoat, with nervous eyes and thin tufts of hair. He had perfected a manner that must make his patients all terrified.

  I remembered my great-uncle, Scaro, who had once visited an Etruscan dentist whose skill impressed him enormously. Scaro was obsessed with teeth. As a small boy, I had listened to many tales of how that man held his patient’s head between his knees, rasping away with sets of files to remove the tartar—and how he would create a gold band to fit over surviving teeth, into which replacements carved from ox teeth would be pinned. …

  I would not acquire a cunning gold brace and a workable bridge in Noviomagus Regnensis. The man was barely competent. He prodded a gum. I cried out. He said he should wait longer.

  The medicinal draft was taking effect. I must even have dozed off briefly. Time shrank, so a few seconds passed, filled with a wide-spanned dream in which I found myself reflecting on the new palace. I saw some fellow who was project manager. He costed the works, created the program, negotiated supplies of precious materials, and hired specialists. Around him a pall of stone dust hung over the largest mason’s yard north of the Alps. He inspected marbles from every corner of the world—limestones, siltstones, crystalline, and veined. Columns were fluted; moldings were polished; cornices were run off from hard templates. In joineries, planes squealed, tenon saws rasped and hammers banged. Elsewhere, carpenters banging down floorboards whistled piercing tunes to overcome their own racket. In forges, blacksmiths clanged incessantly, turning out window catches, dra
in covers, handles, hinges, and hooks. They produced mile after mile of nails, which in my dream were all nine-inch monsters.

  I saw the palace complete, in splendor. One day the King’s quiet corridors would be trodden by businesslike feet, amid the murmur of voices from elegant rooms. One day …

  I woke. Something was wrong in my darkened surroundings. I saw it blearily. A large interior with a workplace. Fearsome gadgets hung on walls. Pincers and hammers. Was this tooth puller a torturer, or just provincial and crude? He owned one tool that was familiar: a joined set of clamps with cutting edges. The last time I saw anything like that, it was the most precious possession of Maia’s dead husband, Famia. He used it for castrating stallions.

  The man approached me. He was holding a set of enormous pliers. He had watery eyes, in which I discerned evil intentions. Through my numbed brain, the truth rammed home. He had drugged me. He was now going to kill me. I was a stranger, why would he do that?

  I stirred. I jumped up. He must have thought I was unconscious. He fell back indignantly. I threw aside the cloth he had used to cover me; it resembled an old horse blanket. I discovered my head had been resting uncomfortably on a smithy’s anvil.

  “This is some wayside blacksmith’s haunt!”

  “He left. I bought it—”

  “You’re an amateur. And I fell for your story!”

  This was not for me. I would make Cyprianus pull the damn tooth out with a set of nail-head pliers. Better still, Helena could take me to Londinium. Her uncle and aunt would produce some skilled specialist who could bore fine holes into abscesses and drain off the poison.