Scandal takes a Holiday

Nothing odd about me. All good Romans have country cousins you included."

None of us can match you for the weirdness of the cousins, though." Petronius looked tired. He had had a long day, starting when he was called out to the saltpans. His skin looked stretched, his hair stuck up in untidy spikes, his eyes had a faraway stare. This did not seem the moment to confess that I had been taunting his landlord. He reached for wine, drinking fast, for numbness.

So who did you get?" I asked him. Who are the stars on your Cilician watch list?"

Cratidas, Lygon, Damagoras."

I thought the old fellow had no record?"

He does now. I put him on the list, after you discussed him."

Oh it's my fault! What about the negotiator, the so-called

Illyrian?"

We still don't know who he is. Rubella has to persuade a prisoner to tell him."

No chance. It would amount to a confession."

Quite." Petronius was so weary, he just stared into space. Maia reached over and took his winecup from him gently, knowing that any moment he would nod off and drop it. He was almost asleep, or he would have stopped her taking the cup. Maia drained what was left. He shook his fist vaguely; my sister captured his hand and held it. The fond couple. So long as one or other of them was too exhausted to fight, they would survive together. I sat for a moment, thinking about the Illyrian. I did not rate that tale he told the kidnap victims, that he was an outsider, a neutral intermediary. He always handled the ransom money; he must have an umbilical cord straight to the gang. Maybe he was the ringleader. He would have heard by now that all of the others had been rounded up. I wondered how he would react. There was nothing he could do, except lie low in whatever lair he frequented. But he must be questioning whether the vigiles had serious evidence or had just made a hopeful pass. He would realise that he himself had never been identified or he would be in a cell now. In this situation, some villains would flee. I reckoned the Illyrian's nerve would hold.

I keep wondering if it's a pseudonym for Florius," said Petro abruptly. He was so keen to capture this gangster of his, he saw Florius everywhere.

No, I reckon it's my long-lost tricky brother Festus, returned from the dead."

Festus!" Petro sat up in pretended horror. Now you're talking serious shit!" He slumped back, and we let him start nodding off again. Helena and I took our leave quietly. Helena, who was fond of Petronius, leaned over him and kissed his cheek; he smiled sleepily, acknowledging that he was too far gone to move. In the hallway, Maia was waiting with a bundle. You left this!" she accused me, drawing in her crimson skirts in distaste. It was Diocles' baggage. I had dumped the dirty laundry days beforehand, hoping that would be the last I saw of it. The house slaves had cleaned up the tunics, on the assumption that the garments belonged to their master; I peered at the results, but there was nothing I would be seen around town in. These looked like the clothes Diocles wore when he was disguising himself as some kind of labourer. There was a particularly vile slug coloured number. I told Maia she could give the lot to the slaves. Pa appeared. It was just like him to delay us at the wrong moment.

What did you think of old Fulvius?" he asked me. I yawned rudely. I thought we went through that."

What is he doing in Ostia?" Helena asked of Pa, as he held her cloak for her while she carried our sleeping daughter Favonia.

He came home. It's allowed, even if you're Fulvius."

And was that story true about him going to Pessinus but catching the wrong boat?"

The way he tells it now, he was just shipwrecked on the way."

So why ever was he going to Pessinus in the first place, Geminus? I looked it up, it's right in the middle of Phrygia!"

Attis syndrome," Pa replied, trying to be mysterious. Helena was unfazed. You mean Fulvius was a follower of the cult ofCybele?"

Well, Fulvius had a bit of a mixed-up personality…" In front of Helena, my father was now curiously shy. She glared until he told her what had always been rumoured about my uncle. Helena, this may shock you, we got used to it, but for a while, poor old Fulvius reckoned he wanted to be a woman."

Being one of my uncles," I said gently, he had to go the whole crazy way." Pa completed the story. He left home to go and see the experts at the shrine ofCybele about removal of a certain body part…"

Castration?" demanded Helena clinically. Pa blinked. I think he joined the navy instead."

That's hardly a solution to his problem!"

You don't know sailors, sweetheart."

No? What happened to the legend that sailors have wives in every port?"

They miss their wives when they are at sea." Helena shook her head at Pa reprovingly. So is Fulvius happy now?"

Happy?" Pa and I looked at each other. Fulvius will never be happy," I told Helena. If he had succeeded in getting to Pessinus and cutting off his implement, for him it would only have been another problem."

He would have spent the rest of his life regretting that he snipped his stick," Pa agreed with me. Helena calmly wrapped the end of her cloak around the child in her arms and let the conversation drop. Helena and I set off back to our apartment. The outer wall of Privatus" house still had my ropes and cleaning material beside it from when I was on watch. That would never have happened in Rome. I retrieved my bucket. At the old town gate, there were no lights in the upper room. I had forgotten to ask Petronius whether the woman who guarded the kidnap victims during their ordeal, Pullia, had been pulled in along with her lover Lygon. And if so, what had happened to the seven year-old we met that day, the lad Zeno? We had arrived at the right moment to find out. Fusculus and a couple of his men clattered down to street level. They had taken in Pullia earlier, and had just finished searching the gatehouse.

We found a load of drugs," said Fusculus, gesturing to a basketful of glass phials now being removed. Opium poppy, I reckon."

So tomorrow we can expect to see the vigiles staggering about the streets, blissfully comatose?" Fusculus gri

No, he doesn't," said Helena. But if none of the kidnap victims will testify, don't forget Marcus and Lucius Petronius once saw Pullia herself insensible after she had sampled the sleeping draught."

Looks as if the woman is the only one we can snare with evidence," Fusculus told us. Rubella thinks he may have to release the males." Helena was angry. A whole gang of men are terrorising victims, raping teenagers, extorting and killing, but you will hold only their female assistant!" As she stormed off growling, one of the vigiles let out a shout from the interior of the gatehouse. A small figure scuttled out, ducked around Fusculus, and hared off up the road. It was Zeno. No one made much attempt to catch him, and he legged it out of sight.