Was it routine to stand by and let a blazing building go up, while ostentatiously protecting nearby premises? Were the military tiptoeing around the racketeers? They would only do that if they were heavily bribed.
Of course nobody would acknowledge what was going on. "Rogue spark," decided the officer. "No one at home to notice."
Why was nobody at home at live-in business premises? I could work that out. Somewhere in this town lurked a baker who had rashly stood out for his independence and now knew his livelihood was doomed. He must have made some gesture of defiance-then he wisely ran.
Rackets usually operate in specific areas. Bars were one thing; if a bakery had been threatened, it was highly unusual. If all the shops, in all the streets, were being targeted, that was real bad news.
The soldiers were pretending to take names and addresses of witnesses. It would be for the secret service lists, of course. Anyone who cropped up on a military rota too often (twice, say) would go down as a disruptive element. Britons seemed to have learned about that; the sightseers melted from the streets. That left me and Helena. I had to tell the boys in red who we were. Ever so politely, we were offered a safe conduct straight back to the procurator's residence: we were being shifted out of there.
Once, I would have objected. Well, once I would have given a false name, kicked the officer in the private parts, and legged it. I might even have done it for practice tonight, had I not had Helena with me. She saw no reason to run for it. Senators' daughters are brought up to be trusting with soldiers; though rarely caught up in a street interrogation, when it happens they always say at once who their daddy is, then expect to be escorted to wherever they want to go. They will be. Especially the good-looking ones. A senator's daughter with a harelip and saggy bust may simply be told to move along, though even then they probably call her madam and don't risk pinching her bum.
"I say we've had enough excitement for one night. Helena Justina, these kind men are going to see us home."
The quicker the better: Helena wanted to nurture the bleeding, weeping scavenger. "She's hurt. We can't leave her."
The soldiers gathered and watched me react. They knew that the hunched, whimpering creature was a street vagrant. They knew that if Helena took her in, we would be infected with fleas and diseases, lied to, betrayed on every possible occasion, then robbed blind when the skinny scrap finally upped and fled. They knew I foresaw this. They refrained from grinning.
Helena was crouching on her knees beside the mite. She glanced up directly at the soldiers, then at me. "I know what I am doing!" she announced. "Don't look at me like that, Falco."
"Know the girl?" I murmured to the officer.
"Always around. Supposed to be a survivor of the Rebellion."
"She only looks like a teenager; she must have been a babe in arms."
"Ah well… So she's a walking tragedy." I knew what he was saying.
I tried not to seem frightening. The girl cringed anyway. Helena was talking to her in a low voice, but the girl just shuddered. Apparently she spoke no Latin. I had not heard her talk at any time, in any language. Maybe she was mute. Another problem.
The officer, who had followed me over, offered helpfully, "They call her Albia, I believe."
"Albia!" Helena tried firmly. The girl refused to recognize the name.
I groaned. "She has a Roman name. Neat trick. One of us- orphaned." She was little more than a skeleton, her features unformed. She had blue eyes. That could be British. But there were blue eyes all across the Empire. Nero, for instance. Even Cleopatra. Rome was damn well not responsible for her.
"This is a poor little Roman orphan," the officer sympathized, digging me in the ribs.
"She looks the right age." Flavius Hilaris and Aelia Camilla had a daughter who was born close to the Rebellion: Camilla Flavia, now radiantly fourteen, all giggles and curiosity. Every young tribune who came to this province probably fell for her, but she was modest and, I knew, very well supervised. This waif looked nothing like Flavia; her pitiful life must have been quite different.
"It really does not matter whether her parentage was Roman," Helena growled up at me through gritted teeth. "It does not even matter that she was left destitute by a disaster that would never have happened if Rome had not been here."
"No, sweetheart." My tone was even. "What matters is that you noticed her."
"Found as a crying newborn in the ashes after the massacre," suggested the officer. He was inventing it, the bastard. Helena stared up at us. She was smart and aware, but she had a huge fund of compassion. She had reached her decision.
"People always adopt babes who are plucked alive from disasters." Now it was me speaking. I too had a dry edge. Helena's scornful gaze made me feel dirty but I said it anyway. "The wailing newborn lifted from the rubble is assured of a home. It represents Hope. New life, untouched and innocent, a comfort to others who are suffering in a stricken landscape. Later, unfortunately, the child becomes just another hungry mouth, among people who can barely feed each other. You can understand what happens next. A cycle sets in: neglect leading to cruelty, then violence, and the most corrupt kinds of sexual abuse."
The girl had her head down on her filthy knees. Helena was very still. I leaned down and touched Helena's head with the back of my knuckles. "Bring her if you wish." She did not move. "Of course! Bring her, Helena."
The officer clucked quiet reproof at me. "Naughty!"
I smiled briefly. "She takes in strays. She has a heart as big as the world. I can't complain. She took me in once."
That had started in Britain too.
XII
It felt as if we had been out for hours. When Helena and I returned, the procurator's residence was aglow with lamps. The house had an after-banquet feel. Although Hilaris and his wife ran their home quietly, while the governor was living with them they readily joined in the grim business of overseas diplomacy. Tonight, for instance, they had been entertaining businessmen.
Helena went to see her new protegee lodged somewhere secure, with her wounds salved. I threw on a better class of tunic and searched for sustenance. Wanting to tackle Hilaris and Frontinus about the local situation, I braced myself and joined the after-dinner group. There were still platters of figs and other treats remaining from the dessert course that had concluded the meal we missed. I piled in. The figs must be locally grown; they were just about ripe, but had no taste. A passing slave promised to find me something more substantial, but he never got around to it.
My hard day in the watering holes of Londinium had left me jaded. I kept a low profile. I had been introduced as the procurator's relative, a detail that the other guests found pretty uninteresting. Neither the governor nor Hilaris gave away that I was an imperial agent, nor said I was charged to investigate the Verovolcus death. They would not mention the death at all, unless the subject came up, even though it must be the most exciting local news.
The diners were now sitting up on their cushioned couches, moving around to meet new people as the portable food tables were removed, and this gave us more space. When I arrived, they continued their conversations, expecting me to join in as and when I could or to sit tight meekly.
I can't say being a hanger-on appealed to me. I would never make a happy client to any patron. I wanted status of my own, even if it was a status people despised. As an informer I had been my own man; I had lived like that too long to change. Gratitude never came easy. I owed nobody anything, and I paid no tributes socially.
The guests were a type I don't care for: merchants looking to expand their markets. They were newcomers, or relative newcomers to Britain. Calling on the governor was meant to smooth their path. Of course, encouraging trade was part of the job for Frontinus. But tonight he kept talking about his plans to go west with the army: he was pleasant, but his heart lay in engineering and military strategy. He made it plain that he had spent part of his year establishing a big new base on the far side of the Sabrina Estuary and that he was preoccupied with going back to oversee a push against the unconquered tribes; so we were all lucky to have caught him on a brief return to the capital. Normally, he would only be here in winter.