Bangles clonked angrily like goatbells as Gaia Laelia stamped her little gold-clad foot. She lost some of her previous air of maturity. "You're horrid! I hope your duckling dies!"
"The duckling's a gosling," I informed her coolly. "When it grows up"-if ever I managed to nurse it from egg to adulthood without Nux or Julia frightening it to death-"it will be a guardian of Rome on the Capitol. Don't insult a creature with a lifelong sacred destiny."
"Oh, that's nothing," scoffed the angry little madam. "Lots of people have destinies-" She stopped.
"Well?" I enquired patiently.
"I am not allowed to say."
Sometimes a secret persuades you to take the job. Today mysteries held no charm for me. The terrible afternoon that I had just spent at my sister's had killed any curiosity.
"Why have you got it here, anyway?" demanded Gaia, nodding at the gosling.
Despite my depression, I tried to sound proud. "I am the Procurator of Poultry for the Senate and People of Rome."
My new job. I had only had it a day. It was still unfamiliar-but I already knew that it was not what I would have chosen for myself.
"Flunkey for Feathers." Helena giggled from inside the door. She thought it was hilarious.
Gaia was dismissive too: "That sounds like a title you made up."
"No, the Emperor invented it, the clever old boy."
Vespasian had wanted me in a position which would look like a reward but which would not cost him much in salary. He thought this up while I was in North Africa. At his summons I had sailed all the way home from Tripolitania, eagerly hoping for position and influence. Geese were what the imperial joker inflicted on me instead. And yes, I had been awarded the augurs' Sacred Chickens too. Life stinks.
Gaia, who knew how to be persistent, still wanted me to explain why the yellow bird was living in my house. "Why have you got it here?"
"Upon receipt of my honored post, Gaia Laelia, I rushed to inspect my charges. Juno's geese are not supposed to hatch their own eggs on the Capitol-their offspring are normally fostered under some wormy hens on a farm. Two goslings who didn't know the system had hatched out-and on arrival at the Temple of Juno Moneta I found the duty priest about to wring their sacred little necks."
"Why?"
"Somebody complained. The sight of scampering goslings had annoyed some ancient retired old Flamen Dialis." The Flamen Dialis was the Chief Priest of Jupiter, top greaser to the top god in the great Olympian Triad. This menace who loathed fledglings must be a humorless traditionalist of the worst type.
Maybe he had slipped on their mess, which the goslings frequently deposited in large quantities. You can imagine the problems we now had at home.
Gaia blinked. "You must not upset the Flamen!" she commented, in a rather strange tone.
"I shall treat this Flamen as he deserves." I had managed not to meet him face-to-face; I just heard his moans from a harassed acolyte. I meant to avoid him. Otherwise, I would end up telling some powerful bastard where he could shove his wand of office. As a state procurator, I was no longer free to do that.
"He is very important," the girlie insisted. She seemed nervous of something. It was obvious the Flamen thought too much of himself. I hate members of ancient priesthoods, with their snobbery and ridiculous taboos. Most of all I hate their undercover influence in Rome.
"You speak as if you know him, Gaia!" I was being satirical.
That was when she floored me: "If his name is Laelius Numentinus, he's my grandfather."
My heart sank. This was serious. Tangling with some hidebound king of the cult priesthoods over a couple of ill-placed goslings was a bad enough start to my new post, without him finding out his darling grandchild had approached me, wanting me to act for her. I could see Helena raising her eyebrows and wincing with alarm. Time to get out of this.
"Right. How do you come to be here, Gaia? Who told you about me?"
"I met somebody yesterday who said that you help people."
"Olympus! Who made that wild claim?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Who knows you are here?" asked Helena in a concerned voice.
"Nobody."
"Don't leave home without telling people where you are going," I rebuked the child. "Where do you live? Is it far?"
"No."
From indoors came a sudden loud cry from Julia. She had crawled away and disappeared, but was now in some urgent trouble. Helena hesitated, then went to her quickly in case the crisis involved hot water or sharp objects.
There was nothing that a child of six could need from an informer. I dealt with divorce and financial double-dealing; art theft; political scandal; lost heirs and missing lovers; unexplained deaths.
"Look, I work for grown-ups, Gaia-and you ought to go home before your mother misses you. Is that your transport in the street?"
The child looked less sure of herself and seemed willing to descend to the elaborate conveyance that I had seen waiting below. Automatically I started wondering. A rich and richly spoiled infant, borrowing Mama's fine litter and bearers. Did this happen often? And did Mama know that Gaia had pinched the litter today? Where was Mama? Where was the nursemaid Gaia ought to have attached to her even inside the family home, let alone when she left it? Where, thought the father in me without much hope of a serious answer, was Gaia's anxiety-burdened papa?
"Nobody listens to me," she commented. From most children of her age it would have been petulance; from this one it sounded simply resigned. She was too young to be so certain that she did not count.
I relented. "All right. Do you want to tell me quickly what you came for?"
She had lost faith. Assuming she ever had any in me. "No," said Gaia.
I was several steps down from her, but I could still look her in the eye. Her young age would have been a novelty if I had been prepared to take her commission-but my time for pointless risks was past. With my new post from Vespasian, ludicrous though it was, my social status had improved dramatically; I could no longer indulge in eccentric decisions.
I managed to find the patience you are supposed to lavish on a child. "We all have quarrels with our relatives, Gaia. Sometimes it matters, but mostly it comes to nothing. When you calm down, and when whoever offended you has had time to do the same, just apologize quietly."
"I haven't done anything to apologize for!"
"Neither have I, Gaia-but take my word, with your family, it's best just to give in."
She marched past me, head in the air. Encumbered by Nux and the gosling, I could only stand aside. But I leaned over the railing as she reached street level, and within hearing of the litter-bearers (who ought to have known better than to bring her) I ordered her in a fatherly manner to go straight home.
Helena Justina came out to me, as I was watching the litter move off. She regarded me with her fine brown eyes, eyes full of quiet intelligence and only half-hidden mockery. I straightened up, stroking the gosling. It let out a loud, appealing squeak, at which Helena humphed. I doubted that I impressed my beloved too much either.
"You let her go, Marcus?"
"She decided of her own accord." Helena obviously knew something. She was looking concerned. Immediately I regretted my rebuff. "So what wonderful job from this Gaia have I just cruelly turned down?"
"Didn't she tell you? She thinks her family want to kill her," said Helena.
"Oh, that's all right then. I was worried it might have been a real emergency."
Helena raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe it?"
"Granddaughter of a chief priest of Jupiter? That would be a high-profile scandal, and no mistake." I sighed. The litter had already vanished, and there was nothing I could do now. "She'll get used to it. My family feel like that about me most of the time."