"Could you run to a dish of appetisers?" Aelianus asked. He was a joy to take undercover.
"What?"
"Forget it!" I ordered. I had just tasted the drink. I wasn't risking food. All my companions had parents who would blame me if they expired of dysentery.
A handful of trench-diggers sidled in, looking like first-timers here. After an age they were joined by a small group of more boisterous characters, determined to make the party swing. They failed. We all sat unhappily, wishing we had stayed at home. A couple of the lamps faded and died. Half the customers looked ready to follow them. The trench-diggers muttered among themselves for a while, then stood up together and snuck out like ferrets, giving the rest of us guilty smiles as if they wanted to apologise that they had left us suffering.
Things suddenly improved. A girl came in. Larius and Justinus stiffened but pretended not to notice her. Aelianus and I glanced at one another and chorused: "Virginia!"
She heard us and came over. With a perfect young face and extremely neat dark hair, drawn back tight in a ribbon, she was old enough to be serving in a grimy bar, yet young enough to look as if her mother ought to keep her in at nights. She wore a simple dress, pinned on so it looked ready to slip off. It revealed nothing; she had less to offer than she hinted. The tempting teenager had perfected a gesture of realigning the sleeves on her shoulders as though she felt nervous about their stability. She got that right. It made us watch.
"Stupenda's dancing this evening?" Justinus checked.
"She certainly is," Virginia assured him brightly. She indicated the drummer, who responded by fractionally speeding up his beat.
"Seems rather quiet here," Aelianus put to the girl. I noticed Larius kept to himself. He was pretending to be the man who was onto a certainty, with no need to exert himself. What a fraud.
"Oh it will liven up." The waitress was full of blase assurance. I didn't trust her.
You can see them all over the Empire: little girls in bars who have big dreams. On rare occasions something comes of it, not necessarily a great mistake. Helena would say that the young men were responding less to the girl's beauty than her aura of expecting adventure. This was all the more tragic if she was really going nowhere.
Her dreams made her fickle. Larius was history. She had already moved on. Justinus had never been in with a chance. Aelianus might suppose that as the newcomer he would be a strong attraction, but he was wrong. I drank my drink quietly and let the young men jostle for her. Virginia picked her favourite; she smiled at me.
"Who's your friend?" she asked Justinus.
He knew better than to show disappointment. "Just an old codger in the family; we have brought him out for a treat."
"Hello/ she said. I smiled faintly, as if I found being chatted up by barmaids embarrassing. I had the lads' six dark eyes staring with hostility, but I was old enough and had enough bad history to live with that. Virginia's patter was basic. "What's your name, then?"
I replaced my beaker on the table and stood up. If she wanted a mature challenge, I could give her some surprises. "Let's go somewhere more private, and I'll tell you, sweetheart."
Then the door crashed open.
We were bathed in a flood of light from smoky flares. Verovolcus and the King's retainers poured inside with a flurry of bare arms, fur amulets and bright trousers. Shouting in several languages, they swept through the bar, shoving tables aside and elbowing customers out of their way as they searched the place like vicious myrmidons in bad epic poetry.
They were rough, though not a quarter as rough as the vi giles in Rome. When Petro's men took a bar apart, everything was wrecked. That was on a day when the red tunics were taking things easy. Other times, you would be lucky to be able to tell afterwards that it had ever been a bar. These fellows of the King's had amiable faces, apart from a few bent snouts, cut eyes and missing teeth. Their idea of raiding the canabae was pretty tame. They all looked as if they knew how to curse, but would be too shy to do so in front of their mothers. I moved Virginia to safe shelter among our group, lest the sweet thing should be accidentally bruised, then we waited patiently for the racket to subside.
They tired of playing bullies even sooner than I thought they would. Only Verovolcus maintained an ugly attitude. When he chose to give up his clowning and turn nasty, he could achieve it in stylish fashion.
"You!" He stopped right in front of me. I let him glare. "I hear you say I killed someone." The King must have told him.
"You'll do best to keep quiet, Verovolcus."
The Britons were patiently waiting for their furious leader. I hoped they stayed so calm. There were far too many for us to take on, and if we fought with the King's men we were finished. "Maybe I will kill you, Falco!" It was clear how much Verovolcus wanted to do that. He didn't scare me but I felt my mouth grow dry. Threats from fools are just as likely to go wrong as threats from thugs.
I lowered my voice. "Do you admit killing Pomponius?"
"I admit nothing," Verovolcus jeered. "And you can prove nothing!"
I kept my cool. "That's because I haven't tried. Force me- and you will be finished. Give in. You could have been kicked right out of the Empire. Be grateful that is not being demanded. You must have cousins in Gaul you can stay with for a few years. Remind yourself of the alternative, and learn to live with the same tolerance that Rome is showing you." He was livid, but I did not let him bubble over. "You could have jeopardised everything for the King and you know it."
Yes, he knew. I reckon the King had already made his feelings felt. With a snarl, Verovolcus turned and strode towards the door. As a gesture of contempt, he knocked the Cupid from its side-table plinth. It lay on the floor, its iron arrow still rigidly in place. All the Britons stepped over it politely as they made their way out. Perhaps they thought it might bite their ankles.
Something close to peace returned to the bar. Customers took up the same seats as before, finding their drinks again. Some had a slight air of sadness, as if they had hoped their drinks had been spilt in the commotion.
I turned back to the girl. Now I was in no mood for messing. She started to smile but I cut short the pleasantry. "The angry man said it, sweetheart. The name's Falco. Marcus Didius Falco."
Her blue eyes were appraising my new mood. She had heard the name. Like others before her, she was in two minds whether this was good or bad. "You are the man from Rome."
Larius laughed briefly. "We are all men from Rome, Virginia."
He would learn.
To Virginia I said sternly, "So, tell me again- what time does the entertainment start' my tone hardened 'or does it?"
She knew what I meant. "She's not coming," Virginia admitted. "She is dancing somewhere else tonight."
My nephew and the Camilli were indignant. "You said' Justinus started.
I thumped his shoulder playfully. "Oh grow up, Quintus. The whole point of beautiful barmaids is that they lie to you."
"So why did she tell you the truth?" he raged.
"Simple. We are all men from Rome but Virginia knows that I am the important one."
LVI
we were all on our feet, to go hunting for Perella. Justinus was already at the door. As the stricken statue lay in their path, Larius and Aelianus cautiously picked it up between them and placed it back on its table. Aelianus jokingly lined up the bow, so it aimed at me.
I had been about to leave with the lads, but I turned back. "Who owns your cheeky table-top art?" I asked Virginia.
"The builder- at the moment." Clearly she did not appreciate the off-balance cherub. His peeping buttocks and his leer were wasted on this worldly girl. "He gave us it as part of the decoration scheme for the new rooms upstairs."