I stood up to leave. The proprietor must have sensed it; he had appeared behind his counter. I wondered how long he had been there, but he did not look like a man who had overheard the story Chloris told. "Anything else, sir?" he asked me deferentially.
"No thanks." I still had not touched my food. "The Cradle in the Tree," I said, looking up at his sign, where a yellow crib among a few spindly twigs made its faded point. "That's an unusual shop name!"
He just smiled and murmured, "It was called that when I took over."
Names given to foodshops were starting to be of some interest to me.
XXIX
Wanting to think, I sneaked back into the residence unobtrusively. Avoiding areas of the house where I might encounter people, I found my way to an upper reception room that had doors onto a long balcony over the formal garden. There I ensconced myself on a long, low sunbed in the shade. I could hear fountains below, and the occasional midday cheeps of hot little sparrows as they splashed in the half-evaporated fountain bowls. With a cool drink, this could have been a perfect way to pass the afternoon. Unfortunately, on my way up here I had not acquired a drink.
The day was so warm, I could have been in Rome. (If only!) You could feel the difference. Too much flower and tree pollen was thickening the air, the scent of August roses was rising from the garden below me, amid hints of the countryside close by-yet no scent of pines. Too much sense of a big river estuary, with seagulls sometimes calling as they scavenged around the moored ships. Anyone could tell that Londinium was a port. And it felt a foreign one.
The sunbed on which I was lying had dampness in its thin pallet. It had been left in storage until this heat wave was well established, as if people feared the good weather would be fleeting. Garden furniture needed to be mobile in Britain; when people moved out among the flowerbeds below, I could hear the legs of chairs scraping the gravel as they brought equipment and arranged themselves.
It was Maia and Aelia Camilla. I would have slipped indoors, but I could hear that they had been talking about how Maia found Petronius to tell him about his daughters' deaths. Perhaps that was what had improved their relationship; my sister and the procurator's wife were today gossiping more freely than before. Their voices rose clearly to where I was sitting. I refused to have a conscience about eavesdropping; they should have been more discreet.
"It was a bad moment, Maia-have a cushion, dear-don't blame him for being offhand."
"Oh, I don't. It just seems he deals more easily with my children than with me."
"You should worry if he can only deal with you through your children."
"Yes. Well, that's me-a mother!" Maia's crisp retort echoed around the enclosed garden. Her voice dropped. "That is the only way anyone expects to treat me."
"There speaks a noble matron." It sounded as if Aelia Camilla had smiled sadly. "Once we have the children… Of course, for a bride with her first husband at least there is a period when you deal with each other as adults. You never quite lose that."
Aelia Camilla had a batch of children now; there was at least one set of twins. Maia must have done some arithmetic, because she demanded quizzically, "Your first baby was a long time coming, wasn't she?"
"Flavia. Yes. We waited a few years to be blessed with Flavia."
"And you never knew why…"
"It seemed inexplicable," Aelia Camilla agreed. Something was going on here.
"So, were you making sure that you wanted to have them?" My sister could be so blunt it was rude.
To my surprise, the procurator's wife took it well. "Maia Favonia, don't accuse me of devious practices!" She sounded amused.
"Oh, I don't!" Maia was also laughing. "Though I am wondering, does Gaius Flavius know?"
"You won't expect me to answer that." Aelia Camilla was a clever woman. Her polite manner made her seem stuffy, though I had always thought it was a front. She was after all sister to Helena's father, and Decimus was a man I liked. His diffidence also hid a sharp intelligence. Brought up in our family, Maia had cruder social skills: nosiness, insults, accusations, rants, and that old favorite, flouncing off in a huff.
"So what about you?" the procurator's wife inquired directly. "Your eldest-"
"My eldest died." Like most bereaved mothers, Maia never forgot and she had never quite recovered from it. "I suppose that's why I felt so much for the situation with Petronius… I was pregnant when I married. I was very young. Too young. Well caught out."
They were silent for a while. A paragraph mark in the conversation.
"So now you have four, and you are widowed," Aelia Camilla summed up. "Your children are not helpless. I think you have a choice. You could be independent-make time for yourself in the way that you missed as a young girl. You are so attractive, you are surrounded by men who want to take you over-but, Maia, it's not for them to choose."
"Ditch them all, you mean?" Maia laughed. I was beginning to realize that after Famia died she must have been very lonely. He was useless in many ways, but he had a large presence. Since he was gone, even Helena had probably not talked to Maia like this. Ma might have given her good advice, but what girl listens to her mother over men? "Norbanus is very attentive," mused my sister. Impossible to tell whether she was pleased by that.
"Will you visit his villa?"
"I haven't decided."
"You could take my husband's riverboat." Maia must have looked puzzled, for Aelia Camilla added pointedly, "Then if you wanted to leave, you would have your own transport."
"Ah! I'm still not sure whether to go, but thanks… There have been others hovering. I got into a serious mess once, back at home." I heard Maia's voice cloud. She was talking about Anacrites.
Aelia Camilla gave no hint of understanding that this was a reference to Maia being stalked by the Chief Spy. She could well know about it. I was under no illusions. Anyone of my rank arriving in a new province would be preceded by an intelligence brief. For all I knew, Anacrites himself had contributed to mine. My sister, having attracted his vindictiveness, must also be a special-category traveler.
Aelia Camilla was now talking about her husband. "Gaius and I experienced problems at one time. I don't say we were publicly estranged, but I was very unhappy for a period."
"It doesn't show now," said Maia. "You were a long way from home?"
"Yes, and I felt a very great void between us."
"So what happened?"
"The usual-Gaius stayed out too much."
"What-bars, or the Games?"
"Well, I knew there were neither available."
"Oh, he said it was work!" Maia, chortling, knew all about that from Famia.
"Genuine." Aelia Camilla was loyal. "He had to travel long distances, sourcing precious minerals."
"How did you solve it? I gather you did solve it?"
"Drastically. I forced him to see that the problem existed: I said I wanted a divorce."
"That was a risk! Hilaris did not?"
"No. And I did not, Maia. Our marriage had been arranged for us by relatives, but it was right. We were in love. Sometimes more, sometimes less; but you feel it, don't you? When it is right."
"So what are you telling me, Camilla?"
"It made me believe that you should speak out. You cannot trust a man to face up to things, you know. Maia, you could lose him before you even start. There is too much to lose if you drift, thinking everybody understands one another."
A wicked note entered my sister's voice. "Are you talking about Norbanus Murena?"