"An astonishing theatre. When we found out how Opimus was
suffering, we all took a vote. Most of us were happy to go to the medical sanctuary and let him seize his chance for a cure."
"How did Phineus take this vote for a detour?" I asked. Marinus and Indus laughed heartily. "I see! Still, you are the clients, so you persuaded him."
"It was no loss to bloody Phineus!" Marinus said crisply. "We pay for it if we want a new itinerary."
"And this was after Olympia?"
"Yes," said Helvia. "We were all feeling shaken by Valeria's death, and perhaps a little kinder towards our fellow humans. When Opimus revealed how ill he was, we all felt it very deeply. You know, I think the shock of what happened to Valeria contributed to his decline; while we were at Olympia he deteriorated rapidly."
"You were on good terms with him?"
Helvia blushed demurely. I imagined her disappointment if she had lined up Opimus as a possible new husband, only to lose him after she had spent much effort making friends.
Helena drew on her usual fund of knowledge. Is Epidaurus where people sleep in a cell near the temple, and hope for a dream that night, which will produce a cure?"
"Yes. It is a wonderful site," said Helvia. "It is set in a marvellous grove, all very spacious, with many facilities, some medical and some where people obtain help for mind and body purely by rest and relaxation. For the sick, the centre contains the Temple of Aesculapius, and not far away a huge building called the dormitory. There you sleep for a night, among tame snakes and dogs who are sacred to Aesculapius. They wander around, and some people dream they are licked by the creatures, which leads to them being healed."
The sacred dogs must be more fragrant than Nux, then. (Nux had been left with Albia that afternoon.) "So what happened?" I asked.
"One or two of us had little ailments we wouldn't mind alleviating, so we went with Opimus and slept in the dormitory that night." Helvia looked slightly disapproving – the classic face of a tourist who knows she has been cheated, but who paid good money for the experience and still wants to believe. "It did not help my rheumatism. None of us seem very much better since then, I'm afraid to say…"
"Somebody must get well. There are tablets hung up everywhere, praising the dream cures," Marinus told us, in his sceptical tone. "Lepidus dreamed that a snake licked his arse and with the assistance of the god he woke up absolutely cured of his piles… Of course they don't say Lepidus had actually gone there with a goitre on his neck! Then
people make pottery offerings in the form of the limb or organ that Aesculapius mended – lots of little wombs and -"
"Feet? asked Helena adroitly.
"Feet – and hands and ears," Indus assured her, with a smile.
Marinus leaned forward. "I have all the luck. I was singled out for a special honour. I got bitten by a sacred dog!" He pulled back a bandage on the leg he had previously put up on the seat to ease it. We inspected the bite.
"No doubt they told you he was just being friendly, and nothing like it had ever happened at the sanctuary before?" Marinus stared at me suspiciously, as if he thought I might be a dog-owner. "Seems to be healing, Marinus." I grinned.
"Yes, I tell myself a friendly snake must have come along afterwards and licked it better."
"Did you dream?" asked Helena, mock serious.
"Not a thing. I never do. As for Turcianus Opimus, whatever he dreamed turned into his nightmare, poor fellow."
"Well?" prompted Helena. Marinus shook his head, looking sombre, while Indus sighed and sank into himself.
The widow was made of stouter stuff. It was left to her to tell us. He passed away peacefully during the night. Oh don't worry!" Helvia assured us quickly. "He had the best medical attention in the world. After all, the healers at Epidaurus go back in a direct line to the teachings of Aesculapius, the very founder of medicine. The one thing you can be certain of is that Turcianus Opimus would have died wherever he was. It was unavoidable and absolutely natural."
Oh really? Doing my job for twelve years had tainted my ability to trust. Simple statements about "unavoidable' happenings now sounded unreliable. Any reference to a "natural' death immediately aroused suspicions.
XXVIII
Helena looked good for more questions, but I was flagging. Since we had now tackled everyone who came to the courtyard for lunch, we packed up and returned to our own lodgings.
With a recommendation from a quaestor, you might suppose this travel lodge would rank with the best in Corinth. Any visitors of note arriving at a provincial capital go straight to the governor's palace, in the hope of being offered luxurious rooms there. Lesser mortals will more likely be told that a great train of ex-consuls has just arrived unexpectedly – though then they should be sent to hotels where at least the bedbugs have been to charm school and the landlord speaks Latin.
Well, that's the ideal. Sorting out accommodation falls to the young quaestor; he is quartered at the residence, so he has never slept at any of the run-down lodgings to which he sends people. He only knows of them because their fawning landlords have given him presents, probably something that comes in an amphora; he's so inexperienced he can't even tell if the free wine is any good. The quaestor is just twenty-five, in his first post, and has only ever been travelling before with his father, a bossy senator, who organised everything. He knows nothing about booking rooms.
Our guesthouse was called the Elephant. It could have been worse. It could have been much better. It had more rooms than the Camel up the street and, according to the manager, fewer mosquitoes than the Bay Mare. Nobody was leasing out cubicles to floozies on an hourly basis, but that was mainly because most of the rooms had desultory builders renovating them. Beds were stacked in the courtyard, so its fountain was turned off and breakfast had to be taken at the Bay Mare, where we interlopers from the Elephant were served last, after the honey had run out. At our rickety hostel, a pall of dust hung everywhere. Gaius had already fallen over a pile of tiles and gashed his leg. Luckily he liked looking scarred and bloodstained. A huge extension with premier grade rooms was being added at the
back, but this was still unfinished. I could have accepted rooms that had no doors, but I felt that we needed a roof.
The afternoon sun was still pleasant. The builders had gone home, as builders do. We knew from experience they would return around midnight, to deliver heavy materials while the streets were quiet.
Helena and I brushed dust from a stone bench and sat down gingerly. Nux was asleep in a patch of sunlight, a relaxed bundle of mix-and-match fur colours, curled up so tightly I could not tell which end was her head. Albia had perched on a plasterer's trestle, to watch Glaucus doing weight training. Apart from one of the smallest loincloths I had ever seen, he was naked. Albia gestured to him and exclaimed, "The beautiful boy!" This was a phrase she had picked up from the pederasts at Olympia, who had it painted on vases they gave to young lovers. How pleasing to see travel had had an educational effect. And how nerve-racking, the way Albia gazed at him…
Glaucus ignored the compliment. Soon he stopped training and sat hunched against a pile of dismantled shutters. When a big strong man becomes unhappy, it is disconcerting.
"What's up, champion?" I was afraid Albia's attentions were too much for him. Teenage girls always hassle shy young men (well, the girls I had known on the Aventine hassled me) and Albia had not forgotten she grew up in Britain, where determined red-haired warrior queens were apt to seduce handsome spear-carriers the minute their husbands glanced away. It was not that, however. (Well, not yet.)
"Falco, I am worried about what I did to Milo," Glaucus confessed, frowning.
"Contact sports are always a risk; your father must have told you. Spectators are hoping for blood and death." My reassurance overlooked the fact that throwing the discus is not supposed to be a contact sport.