Nemesis

The women seated themselves in comfortable half-round chairs, filling in time by arranging cushions. Thalia folded the cloak so it just covered her legs, in a curiously modest gesture. I glanced at Helena, then waited. She had given me a 'don't say anything impetuous' look, the put-down that strong-minded wives inherit from their mothers. You know, the look you should always pay attention to, though the mischievous Fates somehow make you foolishly ignore it.

Parvo must be a piecework lawyer, not paid by the hour. He moved things along: 'Falco, when we spoke just now, did I detect a query?'

'Only that I was surprised by the will's date. I understand Pa made frequent revisions – and didn't that include one last week?'

'Yes, I brought that for you,' Parvo replied calmly. 'It is a codicil. Your father did indeed frequently make changes, but he always left the will itself alone.'

'Your fee for a codicil is much cheaper than your fee for a new will?' I guessed drily.

Parvo smiled his acknowledgement of what Pa called value for money and others might stigmatise as meanness. 'Apart from that, a codicil is often a more flexible way of giving instructions.'

I braced myself. 'So what usefully flexible orders has the old beggar left?'

Without comment, Parvo passed me a scroll, the ink so fresh and black it almost still smelt sooty. I read it. I raised my eyebrows and passed it to Helena, who read it too. We both looked at the lawyer.

'Marcus Didius Falco, your father hereby makes a solemn request of you called a fideicommissum. That is a good faith undertaking.' Filthy misnomer. Good faith did not come into this. 'It affects any child of Marcus Didius Geminus, otherwise Favonius, which is born to him after the date of this codicil – including a child born posthumously. You are charged with treating any child that you know your father intended to acknowledge as your sister or brother, according to the terms of the will.' Parvo knew what instruction he was handing me. A new female child must be given the same as my sisters' annuities. A male child would halve my inheritance. 'I shall leave you with that, Falco. Should you have any queries, anything at all, I gave your wife my address. Delighted to meet you, Helena Justina – and you too, Thalia.'

Being an experienced family lawyer, he fired the arrow then at once made off.

Helena and I turned to our old friend Thalia. Helena balanced her chin on her clasped hands, in silence. It was left to me: 'Do I gather, Thalia, that you are pregnant?'

She eyed me ruefully. 'Properly caught out, Falco.'

Thalia looked well-preserved. Across an arena she could pass for a lithe girl, but near to, I put her at approaching forty. Gracious Roman manners barred me from suggesting she was too old for this. Maybe she had thought so herself, while freely indulging in love play. That sexual promiscuity of an athletic kind had occurred was in no doubt. Thalia referred to her appetite for pleasure as consistently as she denounced as pitiful the brave men she bedded.

'Would this have been on your Egyptian trip?'

'I wondered why I was feeling so queasy all the time in Alexandria.'

'Geminus believed he was responsible?'

'Oh, he didn't need persuading. The sweet duck was ecstatic,' boasted Thalia. 'It must have happened on the boat when we were going out to Egypt. We had a few cuddles to keep out the sea breezes.'

'I'm rather surprised by the results!'

Thalia grinned. She was recovering her confidence. 'I can't say I'm happy to be a mother at my age – - but when I told him the news, your dear father was just thrilled. He was so proud to find out his ballista was still firing missiles.'

I believed that. Pa – vain, foolish and ridiculous – would eagerly take the blame.

'You told my father you were expecting, he accepted it was his responsibility, and if he hadn't died, he would have acknowledged the baby?'

'That's right, Falco,' said Thalia meekly.

'What does Davos say?'

'Nothing to do with him.' Davos was Thalia's long-lost love, in theory. Helena and I had witnessed them being reunited out in Syria. It had seemed like a heart-warming development – - for about three months. As far as I knew, he was now leading a summer theatre tour in southern Italy. No chance of pinning this baby on Davos. 'The Girl from Andros' and her pal 'The Girl from Perinthos' would give him foolproof alibis.

'And have you mentioned it to Philadelphion?'

'Why would I do that?'

Thalia gave me a hard defiant stare. She was sticking to her story, even though she realised I thought it much more likely her child had been procreated by a womanising zoo keeper we knew in Alexandria. He was firmly married – and what's more had a tenacious official mistress. None of that had stopped him unofficially discussing the price of lion cubs with his old crony Thalia in the humid privacy of her travel tent.

'You're right.' I managed not to appear angry. 'Philadelphion had enough baby animals to hand-rear.'

I rarely pray to the gods but on this occasion it did seem permissible to offer up a plea to Juno Lucina, light-bearer to pregnant women, that Thalia was not expecting male twins or triplets to reduce my heritage even further. Suddenly I knew how that old mythical king felt about the interlopers Romulus and Remus. I saw why he put those threatening twins straight into the Tiber in a basket; if I did it, I would make sure there were no nearby female wolves available for suckling.

'So Marcus, my dear,' Thalia wheedled. 'It's lucky we know each other so well – - now that I'm going to be giving you a little sister or brother! And do I gather the precious babe is to receive a bit of money from your lovely father?'

'Get it born first!' I answered her, perhaps too cruelly.

VI

You hypocrite – I saw your face!' Helena accused me. She smoothed her skirts, rattling her bracelets in annoyance. 'Marcus Didius Falco -' That was a subtle clue. Helena used formality like a fisherman's trident. I was well speared. 'Can it be that you have become a miser, over a fortune you never expected – - and it's only nine days since you heard about it?'

'Human nature. The dark side of greed.' I forced a grin cautiously. 'What I really hate is this pregnancy of Thalia's being passed off as our problem. Pa was riddled with vanity and befuddled by drink if he couldn't see she was conning him. Being fleeced by a friend is loathsome.'

Helena shook her head. 'What if she's right? No child can ever truly know its father, nor any father know his child. Unless there is some way of testing the blood in our veins, we are all left with the word of our mothers – - and most of us are none the worse for it.'

'The world is full of wicked mothers who have no idea who their children belong to. Roll on the day some scientific investigator finds out how to prove paternity. Maybe that silver-haired fox Philadelphion will do it.'

'Given that Philadelphion may be the real parent, that would be a nice irony. But uncertainty has advantages,' Helena maintained. 'Besides, you can't blame Thalia asking Geminus for help – -'

'She's a highly successful entrepreneur. What help can she need?'

'She can't dance with the python during a pregnancy!'

'I would not put it past her. Modesty isn't in her repertoire.' Even Thalia's normal acrobatics were gross. 'If she's out of action for a while, her troupe will go on working. She'll have funds.'

'But Marcus, she wanted to plan for the baby's future. She didn't know your father would die,' Helena insisted. 'No one expected it.'

'I agree, she can't have intended settling down with him – - she's far too independent.' I shuddered at the thought of Thalia as a stepmother. 'Still, she got him to promise something. He obviously told her he would change his will. And she was happy for him to do so!'

'As you said – - she is a very good businesswoman.'