Even Gaius looked startled by this declaration, though he rallied enough to wink at Lucilla, a curious gesture from a one-eyed man.
‘Vinius Felix insists on proper arrangements,’ Paulina butted in, anxious to pin down Junius, of whom she clearly shared Lucilla’s low opinion. ‘If everyone settles down nicely, we will adopt formally.’ Her eyes narrowed at the whimpering Titus, whom Lucilla was tending. ‘What about that little mite?’
‘Don’t worry about him,’ shrugged Junius. ‘He won’t last the week.’
‘Give him to me as well then. I’ll comfort him on his way out.’
He might not die. Lucilla reckoned that if the toddler could be saved, this stern woman would achieve it.
They went in a quiet crocodile to Felix and Paulina’s house. The two little girls, in their matching pigtails that Lara herself had plaited a fortnight before, walked one each side of their new mother, with Paulina grasping each by the hand. Paulina seemed abrupt at first meeting, but the children had immediately accepted her gruff kindness. Lucilla carried the frail Titus in a basket. Vinius shouldered a small pack with the children’s meagre belongings, together with professional equipment of Lara’s that Junius had passed on to Lucilla.
Paulina gave them a meal, during which Lucilla had an odd feeling that her introduction to Felix and his wife might have wider repercussions. Paulina had encouraged her to see the girls whenever she wanted. She would be invited to their home again.
When she and Vinius were leaving, Felix came and thanked her for making his wife so happy with this ready-made family. Lucilla began to feel tearful again.
Vinius walked her back to Plum Street. ‘You did the right thing. Paulina is strict and Felix will spoil them silly; it’s perfect. Then of course, I make a wonderful uncle.’
Lucilla felt their relationship shift disconcertingly.
Vinius had to go to the Camp, or so he said. Lucilla wondered if he was really intending to visit his wife at the marital apartment. Whatever his destination, he seemed in no hurry to be there. Before he left that evening, he carried two chairs to the balcony. Felix had given him a flask of wine which Vinius poured into beakers. Feeling calmer about the future, but suddenly exhausted, Lucilla slumped in her chair beside his.
They sat for some time enjoying their drinks in silence. It was good wine. As a carter, Felix sometimes drove for a wine importer.
‘You will be all right,’ Vinius encouraged. ‘If you need any kind of help come to the Camp and ask me.’ Silence. ‘You can ask.’
‘Yes.’ Lucilla held up a hand, palm towards him. ‘You are a good friend, Gaius; I understand that.’
This was the first time she ever called him Gaius. It was a slip. Too personal. Even though he had become her nieces’ uncle, she would not repeat it.
It was then that Vinius turned his chair so he sat directly facing Lucilla. He could have reached out and taken her hand, though he did not do so. ‘I want to ask you some questions.’
Lucilla placed her beaker on the ground, immediately on the defensive. ‘What questions?’
‘Tell me about Lara.’
‘You met Lara once. She was here one day when you came, about six months ago.’
Vinius did remember. The women were very alike to look at. He had heard Lara in the workroom, sounding cheery; then she came out to be introduced. A pretty woman, though with dispirited eyes. They had barely met, yet to his mind the sister had stared at him as if she did not trust him near her Lucilla.
‘She loved her children?’
‘Yes. She kept them immaculate. She would have been horrified to see them today, all grubby and tearful.’ Children were like that all over the Empire though many others, even in gruelling poverty, were given the best of everything possible. Lara had been devoted. Please gods, Paulina and Felix would be too.
‘And she loved you too,’ commented Vinius. She thought I was after you. She reckoned I was trouble… ‘How old was Lara, would you say?’
‘She was thirty-six this year.’
She looked forty, Vinius thought; forty at least. ‘Thirty-six; and a mother how many times?’
‘Oh about ten,’ groaned Lucilla unhappily. ‘Some died. She still looked so young, to me, because of her happy nature, but she was worn out. And don’t say, “Never let that happen to you, Lucilla”, because she told me herself often enough.’
‘I bet she did!’ Vinius was still pursuing some mysterious line of thought. ‘When you were born, Lara would have been how old?’
‘Fifteen. She was fifteen years older than me.’
‘When did she marry Junius? He’s a horror, by the way.’
‘When I was a baby, I think. Very young — too young. She married and she moved away. So I never really knew Lara during my childhood.’
‘While you were being brought up by her mother, Lachne.’
‘ My mother! How do you remember her name?’
‘You told me, at the station house. The day the big fire started. Most vigiles remember that day all too well… When did Flavia Lachne become a freedwoman?’
‘Soon after I was born. She must have been thirty; those are the rules. Flavia Domitilla granted her freedom — or perhaps Mother had to pay for her manumission; she never said. One thing she was very proud of, Lara told me, was that she managed to save enough of a nest-egg to buy freedom for Lara and me.’
‘But at the time when you must have been conceived, both Lachne and Lara were still slaves?’
‘I suppose so.’ Lucilla was too intrigued to object to these questions, though she felt uneasy.
‘Let me guess — Lara was sunny in temperament, pretty, a very appealing young girl?’
‘Yes. You met her. You just saw her daughters. Our mother was good-looking too. Lara must always have been beautiful. Vinius, what is your point?’
‘Think, Lucilla.’
Consciously or subconsciously, Lucilla resisted what he wanted her to see.
Vinius left the suggestion, temporarily. He picked up her beaker and shared out between them what remained in the wine flask. He tilted his cup, saluting her, and waited. Vigiles interrogations had made him a patient man. ‘Sweetheart, it happens.’
‘What happens?’
‘Slavegirls are seduced when very young.’
‘You are beginning to offend me.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ His motives were good, in his opinion, so Vinius pressed on. ‘Lara meant so much to you and she obviously cared very dearly for you — even a stranger could see that. I just wondered if you ever thought of the possibility that Lara, and not Lachne, might have been your real mother?’
Lucilla had never imagined this.
Once before, at the vigiles station house, Gaius Vinius had said something that disturbed her family ties. Now he was doing it again. He knew life. He knew people. He picked up clues from nowhere and analysed them forensically; he shook out the truth like moths from an old cloak. As soon as he made the suggestion, Lucilla felt it was probable. Many things became clear. Lachne’s occasional air of resentment; Lara being kept out of sight during Lucilla’s childhood; Lara’s tender reception of Lucilla after Lachne died…
It must have been agreed that Lachne would bring up Lucilla so Lara could marry and have a life — if marriage to seedy Junius, with its endless pregnancies, could be called life. It was respectable, and less precarious than Lachne’s own existence relying on a series of lovers, but had Lachne later regretted what happened to her elder daughter? Lucilla remembered Lachne speaking sourly of Lara’s family arrangements.
‘Don’t be upset,’ Vinius soothed her. ‘I only wish I had thought of saying something when Lara was alive, so you could have asked her.. This would not be unique, you know. Mothers do step in to help very young daughters in that predicament.’
‘Oh history had repeated itself,’ agreed Lucilla in a dull voice. ‘Lachne bore Lara at an even younger age. The same, presumably: a slavegirl seduced, whether she wanted it or not.’
Lara’s and Lucilla’s father could even be the same man, Vinius thought; he was too considerate to say so. ‘Forgive me for speaking?’