Poseidon s Gold

'So what's your quest?'

'A retrieval.'

They began a long rambling saga involving a sacred item.

I had to break in. 'Look, if this involves the treasures that the conquering Titus lifted from your Temple at Jerusalem and dedicated on the Capitol, I'll stop you there! Robbing trophies from Rome's most sacred altar lies outside my sphere of activity.'

They exchanged furtive glances. I had stumbled on some much older mystery. Intrigued, I pressed for details. What they had lost was a large ship-like box of great antiquity, surmounted by two winged figures and supported on two carrying-poles. The Judaeans wanted to find it because it had magical properties which they believed would help them overthrow their enemies. Ignoring the fact that I didn't want my fellow Romans struck by lightning or smitten with fatal diseases (well not many of them), I was tempted. I love ridiculous stories. But explaining such a peculiar commission to Helena was more than I could face.

I grinned. 'Sounds as if you need a real daredevil for this job! I do divorces, which are hard enough, but I don't think I can undertake to find Lost Arks:'

I repaid their information about Festus with hard currency, and we parted friends.

As I picked my way from the bivouac, the unknown prisoner called out after me, 'He was heroic. His whole heart was in the matter. Let his mother be told, the man you seek-your brother-was a true warrior!'

I didn't believe a word of it. But I felt prepared to tell the lie.

LXIX

I can't say I was feeling happy, but I did feel sufficiently improved to give myself a minor treat: I walked from the Forum up the Via Flaminia to the collectors' house. Then I joined the throng who were congregating in their gallery, viewing the Phidias.

Smart people were standing around with that air of constipated fright people have when gazing at great art without a proper catalogue. The women were wearing gold sandals that hurt their feet. The men were all wondering how soon they could politely leave. Silver salvers with very small pieces of almond cake were handed round to reward those who had come to do reverence. As usual on these occasions there had been wine earlier, but by the time I arrived the waiter with the tray had disappeared.

Poseidon looked good. Among the other marble gods, ours held his own. I felt a certain glow of pride. I felt even better when Carus wafted up, his mournful face almost happy for once, with Servia bundling along on his arm.

'Looks impressive.' I popped in an almond slice. 'What's the provenance?'

They dwelt lightly on the tale of the illustrious senator and his brother who imported from the East. I listened thoughtfully. 'A brother of Camillus? Not the one with the cloud attached to his name? I've heard a few shady stories about that one-wasn't he a merchant who handled dubious commodities, and died in mysterious circumstances?' I stared back at the statue. 'Well, I'm sure you know what you're doing!' I remarked. And then I left.

Behind me, I had left an insidious worm of distrust already gnawing morbidly.

LXX

The party at my mother's house which I had wanted to avoid was over. 'We heard about your disaster so I sent them home.' Ma sounded gruff.

'Geminus sent a message about what happened,' Helena explained in an undertone.

'Thank you, Papa!'

'Don't grouch. The message was mainly to warn us to look after you. When you didn't turn up we were worried sick. I've been looking for you everywhere-'

'That makes you sound like Marina drag-netting the bars for my brother.'

'The bars were where I looked,' she confirmed, smiling. She could see I was not drunk.

I sat down at Ma's kitchen table. My women surveyed me as if I were something they ought to catch in a beaker and put out on the back steps. 'I had a job to do, remember. A certain party commissioned me to investigate Didius Festus.'

'And what did you find out?' Mother demanded. 'Nothing good, I dare say!' She seemed to be her old self.

'Do you want to know?'

She thought about it. 'No,' she said. 'Let's leave it alone, shall we?'

I sighed gently. That was clients for you. They come pleading with you to save their skins, then when you've given up weeks of hard effort for some pitiful reward, you take them the answer and they stare at you as if you're mad to bother them with these puny facts. A case that was all in the family made things no better, though at least I knew the parties from the start, so I was prepared for it.

A bowl of food appeared before me. Ma ruffled my hair. She knew I hated that, but she did it anyway. 'Is it all sorted out?' This was a purely rhetorical question, meant to soothe me by pretending to show an interest.

I took a stand. 'All except the knife!'

'Eat your dinner,' said my mother.

Helena muttered to Ma apologetically, 'I'm afraid Marcus has a fixation with tracing your old cooking knife-'

'Oh really!' snapped my mother. 'I don't see the problem.'

'I think Pa took it.'

'Of course he did.' She was perfectly calm.

I choked. 'You could have said that in the first place!'

'Oh I thought I did:' I would get nowhere trying to pin her down. Now everything was my fault. 'What are you making so much fuss for?'

I must have been exhausted, because I came straight out with the question everyone had been too sensitive to pose to her: 'If Pa pinched the knife when he left home, how did it reach the caupona?'

My mother appeared to be offended she had reared such a fool. 'Surely it's obvious! It was a good knife; you wouldn't throw it out. But that woman of his wouldn't want someone else's equipment in amongst her own kitchen tools. First chance she got, she gave it a decent home somewhere else. I would have done the same,' said Ma, without vindictiveness.

Helena Justina looked as if she were trying not to laugh.

After a silence it was Helena who risked an even braver question: 'Junilla Tacita, what went wrong between you and Geminus, all those years ago?'

'Favonius,' replied my mother, rather shirtily. 'His name was Favonius!' She had always said that changing his name and pretending to become someone else was ridiculous. My father (said my mother) would never change.

'What was the reason he left?'

Helena was right. My mother was tough. There was no real need to tiptoe around these dainty issues which she must have faced squarely in her time. Mother answered Helena quite freely: 'No special reason. Too many people crammed in too small a space. Too many quarrels and too many mouths to feed. Then people give up on each other sometimes.'

I said, 'I never heard you tell anyone that before!'

'You never asked.' I had never dared.

I ate my dinner, keeping my head down. Coping with family, a man needs to build up his strength.

Helena Justina was seizing her chance to explore. She should have been an informer; she had no inhibitions about asking tactless questions. 'So what made you marry him? I imagine he must have been very good-looking in his younger days.'

'He thought so!' Ma chuckled, implying otherwise. 'Since you ask, he seemed like a good prospect, with his own business and no hangers-on. He ate well; I liked the way he cleaned up a dinner-bowl.' A rare nostalgic haze came over her. 'He had a smile that could crack nuts.'

'What does that mean?' I scowled.

'I know!' Helena Justina was laughing, probably at me.

'Well, he must have caught me in a weak moment,' decided Ma.

I did tell her what the prisoners had said about her famous son. She listened, but what she thought or whether she was pleased to know it was impossible to tell.