Nemesis

We tired of playing games. I flopped on a couch and Helena knelt to help pull my boots off. She was simply dressed for home in a long white tunic, with plaited hair just wound in a circle and secured with one long bone pin. My real wealth lay in the love in her eyes. I knew that.

Albia was still moping; she had stopped throwing perfume bottles at the wall, though she had taken to disappearing out of the house for long periods. Perhaps she went walking by the river, wafting along like a water sprite wronged by some heartless god. When she did come home, Helena suspected she was writing screeds of tragic poetry. 'I blame myself, Marcus; I gave her the education. Is this to be the Empire's heritage: putting barbarians at a social disadvantage – - yet equipping them to complain?'

'Any further visits from Aelianus to inflame things?' 'No; he's busy. Father decided that now both Aulus and Quintus are married, it is make or break time to put them up for the Senate.' That was all I needed: electioneering. Helena grimaced too. 'I mentioned that it would be inconvenient for you, just when you are tied up with the legacy and need them to assist in your casework. But Papa is giving them one last chance to become respectable – he hopes to inveigle Minas of Karystos into a financial contribution.'

I scoffed. 'We know Minas better than that, I think!' 'Yes, he is as much use to Aulus as an in-law as he was as a professor. I suppose it has struck you,' Helena murmured warily, 'that you are now in line to be badgered for money, Marcus.'

'What? Everyone always supposed I wanted your father to pay my debts. Can the senator now be hoping to sponge off me?'

'I believe he may try to talk to you,' Helena admitted, smiling.

Thank you, Geminus. Now I was a plebeian-born, middle-class upstart who had to play banker to his aristocratic relatives. 'Will it cause a family crisis if I say get lost?'

'Not from me,' said Helena. 'Neither of my ridiculous brothers is fit to govern a beanfield, let alone the Empire.'

'Then they will sail into the Senate. Perhaps I should make an investment, then demand political favours from them? If a bunch of ex-slaves living on frogspawn can have friends in high circles, why not me?'

'You don't need favours from anybody, Marcus.'

I kept my head down for a few days. Life ran its usual furrow in the Aventine, though his tribune was back, so Petronius Longus had too much work at the station house. Invigorated by the sea air of Positanum, Rubella started sniping because Petro kept nipping off to the Forum Boarium, the riverside cattle market, to scrutinise any animals that came in. 'Just in case Nero turns up.'

'Nero's long gone,' I snapped, for which I received a mouthful of bad language. Fine. I told the high-handed Petronius that I had plenty to do at the Saepta Julia. So I immersed myself in my own business. We were not estranged, just having one of those tussles that keep a good friendship fresh.

Without my restraining presence, Petronius Longus chalked up a 'missing' poster in the Forum. It gave Nero's identifying features: answered to Spot, left-hander when yoked in a pair, dun coloured, four legs, tail, left-eye squint. Petro even drew a mug-shot. His depiction of Nero's perpetual line of dribble was particularly sensitive, in my opinion. I saw two granary clerks almost wetting themselves as they guffawed over the artwork, but they took it more seriously when they saw what size reward my stubborn friend was offering.

He was presented with a lot of mangy animals by rustlers who had just 'found' oxen wandering, but never his own.

The day I saw the poster, I was at the Forum to meet my banker, that morose ledger-fixer, Nothokleptes. His fingers could fiddle an abacus like no other's. He wanted to hire me a larger bankbox (for which there would be a larger fee) while I needed to explain that my sudden acquisition of large sums was not due to illegal money-lending scams or fraud on twittering old widows. Nothokleptes was quickly convinced I was legit; with a fine grasp of Roman nomenclature, he stopped referring to me as 'Falco, you shameless bankrupt' and now schmoosed, 'Marcus Didius, my dear respected client'. He claimed he had always known I would come good, though I had no recollection of this astrological forecast in the long dark days when I was begging for credit. I still had to get used to my new position. I admit I was surprised when Nothokleptes seated me at a little bronze-legged table and sent out a lad to buy me a custard pastry. It was soggy, with not enough nutmeg topping, but I saw that my financial fortunes must have officially turned around. Thanks again, Pa!

Mellowed by egg custard, though with mild indigestion, I climbed up the Aventine to visit my mother. She was out, putting the world to rights. So I called at the house nearby where Petro and Maia now lived. She said he was sleeping. Then she backed me into a daybed on their sun terrace and forced a dish of salted almonds on me. I was beginning to see why men of wealth were also men of girth.

'Lucius has come home from Latium in a foul mood, and it can't just be losing that ridiculous ox. I blame you, Marcus!' Maia tolerated me more than my other sisters did, but she followed the trend. Petro's first wife, Arria Silvia, always thought I was a bad influence. That was even though, according to me, our worst adventures had always been his idea.

'I never did anything!' Why did a discussion with relatives always make me sound like a truculent five-year-old?

'I suppose that's what the low-lifes in the marshes all said too! Lucius keeps mum, but I can tell you got nowhere. You'll have to buck up,' Maia instructed me. She was a decent sort, when not being abrupt, hasty-tempered, condemnatory and unreasonable. That was her good side; her wild side was frightening. 'Get this case moving, will you?'

'It's his case.'

'He's your responsibility.'

'No – he's thirty-six years old and a salaried officer. Besides, he wasn't even my responsibility when we were young soldiers drinking our way across Britain while the tribes rampaged around us.'

'I can't live with him this grouchy,' Maia insisted. 'You're supposed to be the investigator, so stop loafing and get sleuthing.'

I promised I would, but sloped off home. Helena was slightly more sympathetic – - if only because she felt her role was to appear always more rational than my female relatives. Putting their noses out of joint with her blameless serenity was, according to Helena, in the noble tradition of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, every wise matron's heroine.

'You are not going to send me out pavement-bashing with a flea in my ear, I hope, darling?'

'Of course not.' Helena paused. 'Though I am very surprised, Marcus, that you have made no attempt to find those Claudii who work in Rome, or learn where Claudius Nobilis went off to!'

I knew when I was beaten. I crawled out of the house like a slug with a spade put halfway through him.

I had no intention of being bossed. Pa, who knew just how to live a worthwhile masculine life, had bequeathed me one thing of greater worth than its book-value: I now possessed his bolt-hole. As nonchalantly as possible, I took myself to the Saepta Julia.

Now I was so prosperous, I even had two bolt-holes. I was still paying rent on a cubbyhole Anacrites and I once hired, back when we were working on tax matters. I had affection for the place that had acquired me middle rank. I was using it now for the legacy paperwork, so it was stuffed with scrolls and piteous pleas for the inheritance tax clerks to give me time to pay. I didn't need more time, but today Nothokleptes had impressed upon me the need to delay bills so he could invest the capital in short-term sure prospects. 'The more you have, the more you can make, young Falco. You realise that, surely?' I certainly realised the more I had, the more my banker could cream off for himself. 'Only the destitute pay up prompt, for fear they won't have any money later.'