Venus in copper

I described my case and the Hortensius freedmen. 'It's the usual story of the wealthy and self-possessed, fighting off an adventurous newcomer. What makes it so piquant is that they are nouveaux riches themselves. I'll take the commission, sir, but I must say, I find their snobbery intolerable.'

'This is Rome, Marcus!' Camillus smiled. 'Don't forget, slaves from important households regard themselves as a superior species even to the freeborn poor.'

'Of which you're one!' Helena grinned. I knew she was implying Sabina Pollia and Hortensia Atilia would be too finicky to tangle with me. I gave her a level stare, through half-closed eyes, intending to worry her. It failed as usual.

'One of the things I find interesting,' I mentioned to the Senator, 'is that these people would probably admit they rose from next to nothing. The man who owned them polished marble. It's a skilled job-which means the piecework rates hardly pay enough to keep a snail alive. Yet now the ostentation of his freedmens' mansion suggests their fortunes must be greater than a consul's birthright. Still; that's Rome too!'

'How did they overcome their unpromising origins?'

'So far that's a mystery…'

While we talked I had been licking honey off the vine leaves from the cake basket; it suddenly struck me a senator's daughter might not wish to associate with an Aventine lout whose happy tongue cleaned up wrappings in public. Or at least, not associate with him in her father's townhouse garden, amongst the expensive bronze nymphs and graceful bulbs from the Caucasus, especially while her noble father was sitting there…

I need not have worried. Helena was making sure no currants from the must cake were left behind in the basket. She had even found a way of forcing the corners open so she could recapture any crumbs that had worked themselves among the woven strands of cane.

The Senator caught my eye. We knew Helena was still grieving for the baby she had lost, but we both thought she was starting to look healthier.

Helena glanced up abruptly. Her father looked away. I refused to be embarrassed, so I continued to gaze at her thoughtfully while Helena gazed back, in peaceful communion about who knows what. Then Camillus Verus frowned at me, rather curiously I thought.

Chapter X

Although I had given up for the day, other folk were still labouring, so I popped along the Vicus Longus to see whether the letting agent Hyacinthus had mentioned was open for business. He was.

Cossus was a pale, long-nosed individual, who liked to lean back on his stool with his knees apart; luckily his green and brown striped tunic was sufficiently baggy to allow it without indecency. He clearly spent most of his day laughing loudly with his personal friends, two of whom were with him when I called. Since I wanted a favour, I stood by looking diffident while these orators dissected the various perverts who were standing in the next elections, discussed a horse, then hotly debated whether a girl they knew (another hot tip) was pregnant or pretending. When my hair had grown half a digit waiting, I coughed. With little attempt at apology the clique slowly broke up.

Alone with the agent, I found an excuse to drop the name of Hyacinthus as if I had known him since he cut his teeth on an old sandal strap, then I explained my yen for upmarket real estate. Cossus sucked in his breath. 'August, Falco-not much shifting. Everyone's away…'

'Plenty of death, divorce and default!' Since my father was an auctioneer, I knew property moves at all seasons. In fact if I had wanted to buy something outright, my own papa could have put some ramshackle billet my way; but even he kept his hands clean of the rented sector. 'Still, if you can't help me, Cossus -'

The best way to screw activity from a land agent is to hint that you are taking your custom somewhere else. 'What area are you looking at?' he asked.

All I needed was lavish space at a small rent, anywhere central. The first thing Cossus offered was a boot cupboard beyond the city boundary stone, right along the Via Flaminia, an hour's walk out of town.

'Forget it! I must be near the Forum.'

'How about a well-established condominium, no snags, small out-goings, extremely appealing outlook, on the Janiculan Ridge?'

'Wrong side of the river.'

'It comes with shared use of a roof terrace.'

'Can't you understand Latin? Even if it comes with Julius Caesar's riverside gardens, Cossus, it's not my area! I'm not some damned itinerant matchseller. What else do you have?'

'Courtyard outlook, shaded by pine tree, opposite the Praetorian Camp -'

'Rats! Find a tenant who's deaf.'

'Ground floor, by the Probus Bridge?'

'Find one who can swim in the spring floods…'

We worked through all the dreary dumps he must have had on the stocks for ages, but eventually Cossus acknowledged he would have to shift those onto some raw provincial visitor. 'Now this is just the thing for you-a short lease in the Piscina Publica. Someone else has expressed an interest, but seeing as it's you, Falco -'

'Don't make a drama. Tell me what it offers?'

'Four good rooms arranged conveniently on the third floor -'

'Over the courtyard?'

'The street-but it's a quiet street. The neighbourhood is most attractive, well away from the Aventine warehouses, and favoured by a genteel clientele.' What comedian writes their speeches? He meant that it was too far from the markets and peopled with snobbish hydraulic engineers. 'The premises are being offered on a six-monthly basis; the landlord is uncertain of his plans for the block.'

That suited me, since I was uncertain of my plans for staying solvent enough to pay him. 'How much?'

'Five thousand.'

'Annually?'

'A half-year!' Cossus gave me a frosty stare. "This is the market for men of means, Falco.'

'It's a market for fools, then.'

'Take it or leave it. That's the going rate.' I gave him a look to say in that case I was going. 'Well, I could probably come down to three thou for a friend.' Half the price was his commission, if I read him right-which made him no friend of mine. 'Because of the short lease,' he explained unconvincingly.

I sat frowning in silence, hoping this would beat him down: nothing doing. The Twelfth is a tolerable district. It lies east of the Aventine on the far side of the Via Ostiensis-nearly home to me. The public fishponds which supplied its name dried up years ago, so I knew the mosquitoes had decamped… I made an appointment to troop along with Cossus tomorrow and inspect the let.

By the time I approached Fountain Court that evening I was determined to take the Piscina Publica apartment whatever it was like. I felt tired of bursting blood vessels climbing up stairs. I was sick of dirt, and noise, and other people's sordid troubles intruding into my life. Tonight I came back into the tangled mass of those Aventine lanes which feed into each other like the underground filaments of some disgusting fungus, and I told myself that four rooms, conveniently arranged, anywhere else must be better than this.

Still dreaming, I turned the corner within sight of Lenia's laundry. Tomorrow I would sign the lease that enabled me to stop feeling ashamed whenever I had to tell a stranger my address…

A pair of feet stopped my happy plans.

The feet, which were enormous, were kicking at each other in the portico of the basketweaver's lock-up about ten strides away from me. Apart from their size, I noticed them because that was where I always parked myself if ever I had some reason to squint at my apartment discreetly before I showed myself.

Those feet were definitely loafing. The person they were attached to was taking no notice of the weaver's artefacts, even though he had lolled up against a gigantic pile of general purpose wicker carrying-hods which would be a boon to any household, while at his feet lay an excellent picnic basket which any genuine bargain-hunter would have snapped up fast… I squeezed behind a pilaster for a closer scrutiny. I knew he was not a burglar; burglars like to have something to steal. Even the incompetent ones steer clear of Fountain Court.