Two For The Lions

“I have enjoyed our talk,” he replied, as if it had been just a tight set of draughts. Then he startled me by adding, “You seem an interesting character. My wife is very keen on entertaining. Perhaps you would accept an invitation to dine with us tomorrow night? With your guest of choice,” he suggested, in a very civilised ma

It was folly for a state auditor to fraternise with the subjects of his current investigation. Naturally I said yes.

22

POMPONIUS URRICA LIVED on the Pincian. His mansion lay up on the high ground to the east of the Via Flaminia, way out past the Mausoleum of Augustus. Nice district. Patrician open spaces, with panoramic views that were interrupted only by tall, elderly pine trees where doves cooed. Beautiful sunsets over the Tiber. Miles from the racket of the Forum. Clean air, peaceful atmosphere, stu

Urrica himself had it easy. When he needed to travel down to conduct public business he would be carried in a big litter borne by well-matched, well-tempered slaves with unfaltering steps. He never had to get his boots dirty in the dust and donkey droppings, and he could while away the hour the journey took each way with a little light reading as he reclined on downy cushions. He may have been equipped with a hip-flask and a packet of sweet toast. For added entertainment no doubt he sometimes squashed in some flirty flutegirl with a big bust.

I walked. I had nothing and no one to sustain me. Winter had turned the dust in the roads to mud, and the donkey droppings had mingled with the mud, leaving loose lumps among the slurry like half-stirred polenta in a caupona that the aediles were about to close down.

I found the lush praetorian abode. It took some time since all the ostentatious Pincian spreads were pretty much identical and all were sited up extremely long approach roads too. At Urtica's I was told by the door porter that his master was away from home. This was no surprise. The slave did not say, though I readily deduced, that even had his master been there (which was perfectly possible) I would not have been allowed in. My fine informer's intuition told me that an order had been given to reject any tired lag who called himself Didius Falco. I did not cause offence at that elegant mansion by proffering my Palace pass. It had been a long hard day already. I spared myself the embarrassment.

I walked all the way back into town. I bought myself a hot pancake and a cup of flavoured wine, but on that nippy winter's afternoon companionship was hard to find. All the flirty flutegirls seemed to be visiting their aunties in Ostia.

23

WELL, BACK TO reality. I went to the baths, got warm again, was insulted by my trainer, met a friend, took him home for a bite.

You know how it is when you have moved into a new apartment and invite an important guest home with you. If you don't own a slave to send on ahead, you arrive, playing suave, and just hoping not to be greeted by an embarrassing scene. That evening I brought home a senator-an infrequent occurrence, I have to say. Naturally we found something extremely embarrassing as soon as we walked in: my wife, as I now forced myself to call her, was painting a door.

“Hello!” exclaimed the senator" “What's going on, Falco?”

“Helena Justina, daughter of the illustrious Camillus, is painting a door,” I replied courteously.

He gave me a sideways glance" “Is that because you ca

“She likes it,” I admitted. Helena went on painting as if neither of us were there.

“Why do you allow this, Falco?”

“Senator, I have not yet discovered how to stop Helena doing what she likes. Also,” I said proudly, “she does it much better than any hired painter would.”

This was why she had not spoken to us. Helena paints her doors with great concentration. She was sitting crosslegged on the floor, with a pa

“Notice,” I murmured, “That she starts at the bottom. Most painters start at the top; half an hour after they walk away, spare paint oozes down and forms a line of sticky drips all along the lower edge. They set hard before you notice. Then you never get rid of them. However, Helena Justina leaves no drips.”

In fact, it was not the way I would have done it, but Helena made her method effective, and the senator looked impressed. “Yet what do your people think, Falco?”

“Oh they are horrified, of course. She was a respectable girl from a very good background. My mother is particularly shocked. She thinks Helena has suffered enough through living with me.” Helena, who had just risen to her knees as she worked upwards, paused in the action of reloading her paintbrush to look around at me thoughtfully" “she is allowed to tell people that I make her do it.”

“And what do you say, Falco?”

“I blame the people who brought her up.”

Helena at last spoke: “Hello, Father,” she said. The lead in the paint was affecting her, so she sniffed. I winked at her, knowing that when she was painting she normally wiped her nose on her sleeve.

The senator Camillus Verus, her father, my di

I deferred to my wife. I was a good Roman. Well, I knew what was good for me.

“Don't waste your money, dear Papa.” Helena had reached the level of the door handle which I had previously removed for her, at which point she stood up so she could reach the upper half of the door. Camillus and I moved our stool… back slightly, giving her more room. “thanks,” she commented.

“She does make a good job of it,” her father remarked to me. He seemed uneasy speaking directly to his singleminded child.

“I taught her,” I said. He gave me a look.

“I made him, of course,” Helena added. He turned the look on her. Where I had deemed it good-ma

Her father accused me roundly, “Now I suppose you will make her prepare our di

“No,” I told him very gently. “I am the cook here.”

Having reached the door's top rail, Helena stepped back and consented to kiss her father, albeit rather distantly for she was busy inspecting her work for snibs of dust. The light was too poor for her. December was the wrong time for such work, but household maintenance has to be done when the mood strikes. She drew her brush over some minute bubbles near the top, frowning. I smiled. After a moment her father smiled too. She turned around to look at us, both still sitting on our stools and both still smiling because we loved to see her happy in her life. Suspicious of our motives, Helena suddenly gave us her full attention, defiantly smiling back at us.

“She hates cleaning the paintbrush,” I said to her noble papa. “So do I.” Nonetheless I took it from her, kissing her hand (avoiding the paint splodges). “Cleaning up is one of the small tasks I undertake for her.” I gazed into her eyes. “In return for the many generosities she gives to me.”

It would have been unseemly to add that on occasions when her father was not present I liked to enjoy myself rather wickedly cleaning up the painter too. Helena's one fault was that she tended to get paint on herself everywhere.