Of "Stupenda' there was no sign. Nor did she have a decent audience. The place should have been packed, with people sitting or even standing on the rectangular tables as well as squashed on every bench. Instead, a handful of men dawdled over their drinks in ones and twos. The most interesting presence was a three-foot-high statue of a Cupid, supposedly bronze, on a plinth in the corner opposite the amphora. The love god had chubby cheeks, a big belly and a sinister fixed expression as he aimed his bow.
"Save us!" muttered Aelianus gloomily. "Sextius must have been touting his tat. The landlord must be an idiot to buy that."
"Rather a ferocious talking point!"Justinus observed. Instead of an arrow, some wag from the site had provided the naked Eros with a long iron nail in his bow. I made an audit note that nails were disappearing from the palace stores. "Don't anyone turn your back on this little blighter."
"You're safe," his brother assured him. "He's supposed to shoot harmless blunt arrows, but we never could make him operate."
"Why have a love god on the premises when there are no skirts in sight?" complained Larius. There were no women visible. No Hyspale; no Helena. "No Virginia!" groaned Larius to Justinus.
"Avoiding you," came the reply, with an edge which suggested Justinus did know Larius had already had some luck with the girl.
We tired of waiting for a greeter to seat us and positioned ourselves at a table. This took some doing as all the stools had wobbly legs. I managed to keep mine steady by wedging one knee under the table rim and bracing the other leg. A man with a grimy apron lurched from a back pantry to serve us. Aelianus asked, in his crisp aristocratic accent, to see the wine list. It was the sort of dump where customers were so locked up in their own misery, nobody noticed this crazy breach of etiquette. Even the waiter simply told him that there wasn't one. It was hard work causing a shocked silence here, let alone making people fail to see a joke.
We had what came. Everyone had what came. Ours was brought in a blackened flagon, which seemed to be a polite gesture to Roman visitors. The rest had theirs poured into their Celtic face-pots from a cracked old jug which was taken away after one quick slosh.
"Could you run to a dish of appetisers?" Aelianus asked. He was a joy to take undercover.
"What?"
"Forget it!" I ordered. I had just tasted the drink. I wasn't risking food. All my companions had parents who would blame me if they expired of dysentery.
A handful of trench-diggers sidled in, looking like first-timers here. After an age they were joined by a small group of more boisterous characters, determined to make the party swing. They failed. We all sat unhappily, wishing we had stayed at home. A couple of the lamps faded and died. Half the customers looked ready to follow them. The trench-diggers muttered among themselves for a while, then stood up together and snuck out like ferrets, giving the rest of us guilty smiles as if they wanted to apologise that they had left us suffering.
Things suddenly improved. A girl came in. Larius and Justinus stiffened but pretended not to notice her. Aelianus and I glanced at one another and chorused: "Virginia!"
She heard us and came over. With a perfect young face and extremely neat dark hair, drawn back tight in a ribbon, she was old enough to be serving in a grimy bar, yet young enough to look as if her mother ought to keep her in at nights. She wore a simple dress, pinned on so it looked ready to slip off. It revealed nothing; she had less to offer than she hinted. The tempting teenager had perfected a gesture of realigning the sleeves on her shoulders as though she felt nervous about their stability. She got that right. It made us watch.
"Stupenda's dancing this evening?" Justinus checked.
"She certainly is," Virginia assured him brightly. She indicated the drummer, who responded by fractionally speeding up his beat.
"Seems rather quiet here," Aelianus put to the girl. I noticed Larius kept to himself. He was pretending to be the man who was onto a certainty, with no need to exert himself. What a fraud.
"Oh it will liven up." The waitress was full of blase assurance. I didn't trust her.
You can see them all over the Empire: little girls in bars who have big dreams. On rare occasions something comes of it, not necessarily a great mistake. Helena would say that the young men were responding less to the girl's beauty than her aura of expecting adventure. This was all the more tragic if she was really going nowhere.
Her dreams made her fickle. Larius was history. She had already moved on. Justinus had never been in with a chance. Aelianus might suppose that as the newcomer he would be a strong attraction, but he was wrong. I drank my drink quietly and let the young men jostle for her. Virginia picked her favourite; she smiled at me.
"Who's your friend?" she asked Justinus.
He knew better than to show disappointment. "Just an old codger in the family; we have brought him out for a treat."
"Hello/ she said. I smiled faintly, as if I found being chatted up by barmaids embarrassing. I had the lads' six dark eyes staring with hostility, but I was old enough and had enough bad history to live with that. Virginia's patter was basic. "What's your name, then?"
I replaced my beaker on the table and stood up. If she wanted a mature challenge, I could give her some surprises. "Let's go somewhere more private, and I'll tell you, sweetheart."
Then the door crashed open.
We were bathed in a flood of light from smoky flares. Verovolcus and the King's retainers poured inside with a flurry of bare arms, fur amulets and bright trousers. Shouting in several languages, they swept through the bar, shoving tables aside and elbowing customers out of their way as they searched the place like vicious myrmidons in bad epic poetry.
They were rough, though not a quarter as rough as the vi giles in Rome. When Petro's men took a bar apart, everything was wrecked. That was on a day when the red tunics were taking things easy. Other times, you would be lucky to be able to tell afterwards that it had ever been a bar. These fellows of the King's had amiable faces, apart from a few bent snouts, cut eyes and missing teeth. Their idea of raiding the canabae was pretty tame. They all looked as if they knew how to curse, but would be too shy to do so in front of their mothers. I moved Virginia to safe shelter among our group, lest the sweet thing should be accidentally bruised, then we waited patiently for the racket to subside.
They tired of playing bullies even sooner than I thought they would. Only Verovolcus maintained an ugly attitude. When he chose to give up his clowning and turn nasty, he could achieve it in stylish fashion.
"You!" He stopped right in front of me. I let him glare. "I hear you say I killed someone." The King must have told him.
"You'll do best to keep quiet, Verovolcus."
The Britons were patiently waiting for their furious leader. I hoped they stayed so calm. There were far too many for us to take on, and if we fought with the King's men we were finished. "Maybe I will kill you, Falco!" It was clear how much Verovolcus wanted to do that. He didn't scare me but I felt my mouth grow dry. Threats from fools are just as likely to go wrong as threats from thugs.
I lowered my voice. "Do you admit killing Pomponius?"
"I admit nothing," Verovolcus jeered. "And you can prove nothing!"
I kept my cool. "That's because I haven't tried. Force me- and you will be finished. Give in. You could have been kicked right out of the Empire. Be grateful that is not being demanded. You must have cousins in Gaul you can stay with for a few years. Remind yourself of the alternative, and learn to live with the same tolerance that Rome is showing you." He was livid, but I did not let him bubble over. "You could have jeopardised everything for the King and you know it."