The men got on with their work, consolidating the ground where the bodies had been dug up and starting a trench for the water feature. They must have been able to tell I was only giving them half my attention. I really wanted quiet time to readjust my thoughts.
This was hardly the first time a suspect had startled me, but I admit I felt like Prometheus having his liver pecked out. Perhaps being a bride was unsettling my guts. Hades, Albia. We hadn’t even got to traipsing out at dawn to cut the flowers for the bride-and-groom headdresses yet. Stinging nettles, if I had my way … I was in a foul mood.
I gazed around the courtyard, once again mentally peopling it with drinkers at tables, then trying to envisage how the customers had been attacked. Well, I presumed the victims had come as customers.
Now, instead of picturing a young, agreeable barmaid joking with them and perhaps upsetting her jealous landlord by seeming overfriendly, I superimposed a much older woman. She would be competent, yet not flirtatious. That would make customers cringe and Thales scoff. But I doubted that Rufia ever chatted up men as she served them. So, when the attack started that night, I wondered if the victims had grabbed her as a shield or a hostage. Maybe that was how she came to be killed in the scrum.
Musing, I wondered if Rufia had been the kind of barmaid who effortlessly remembered the exact round of drinks that had been ordered, or whether she was a vague one. If she was as stern as people implied, I bet no one argued when she banged down a wrong flagon. Once she came out to the garden with what she deemed people wanted, only a brave customer would send her back indoors for something else …
The workmen stopped for lunch. Huge chunks of bread, raw onions, fruit. Fruit … It was a while since their breakfast so they believed they were due a break. They tended to take many. I had heard Tiberius chivvying them, though mildly. Mostly, unless he was with me, he joined in. There was another wifely task; I would have to watch his weight.
Larcius, the foreman, came and plumped himself by me. Like the others, he asked if everything was all right. I must have looked properly shaken.
“I had an unpleasant set-to with a woman I needed to interview. I’m used to it. Don’t say anything to Faustus. I’ll tell him myself in due course, but it’s nothing he needs to worry about.”
“Who was that?” asked Larcius, nosily.
“Her name is Menendra. She sells some commodity to the bars around here. Ripe young whores, I expect.”
He nodded. “Seen her.”
“Oh! Do you know what her game is?”
Regrettably, he shook his head. “Only that she comes and goes a lot. As you say, in all the bars.” Did that mean the workmen had tried them all?
“Has she been here?”
“Once a week, on the dot. Keeps wanting to know when the Hesperides will reopen. I tell her we don’t know and shoo her out again.”
“Does she get aggressive?”
He grinned his toothless grin. People who inquired about the works were nothing new; he was an old hand at seeing them off. Neighbors often tried to extract information from builders, who (I was learning from Tiberius) either stalled completely or, if they were feeling mischievous, invented a mad story to cause consternation.
I sat and pondered.
Sparsus and Serenus, to whom ludicrous stories came easily, were in deep discussion as to what they were likely to encounter if and when they made a connection with an aqueduct for the water feature. They started talking about sewers. The fact that the builders made little distinction between the supply of fresh water and the removal of effluent could explain why so many households have plumbing work go badly wrong. Certainly the underground world was a source of thrills to our men. I heard mention of gigantic rats, discarded pet crocodiles, ghosts coming up from the Underworld, and-their favorite fright-large pulsating blobs.
“Worms!” called Larcius, hoping this detail would insert realism into the conversation. “Big tangles of worms.” No use. Sparsus and Serenus were not looking for facts, they wanted to scare themselves silly. Discussion of the legendary horrible blobs continued. They decided that if they should find one of these, Larcius could be the brave person who poked it with a stick to see what happened. He patiently agreed he would-if it was ever necessary. He had worked with them for years. He let them ramble.
“Flavia Albia’s been telling me she had a run-in with that Menendra.”
“Who’s that?”
“The miserable hag who comes around.”
“Oh her!” scoffed Sparsus.
“She’s a one,” agreed Serenus. “She can see we are nowhere near finishing, but she’s always on the niggle.”
The workmen had a kind of easy acceptance that the world was full of idiots, whom they had to fend off patiently. They possessed technical expertise while all members of the public were irritating amateurs. People love to stare at holes in the ground. They think they know all about hole-in-the-ground engineering and management. Works in a bar made it worse because gormless passers-by could so easily prop themselves against the marble counters, leaning in to ask time-wasting questions.
“So why is the finish date so vital to Menendra?” I queried, not expecting answers. “Do you know what she does?”
“Sells them their olives?” guessed Serenus. At least it was a variation on fruit.
“Ever seen her bring a storage amphora to any of the bars?”
Serenus looked offended at my persnicketiness. Proving a theory with evidence was new to him. If he continued to work for Faustus, he would have to sharpen up.
“I can ask her,” volunteered Larcius. “The next time she invades the site, nagging about when we’re handing it back to Liberalis, I shall say, ‘What do you need to know for?’ Then she’ll tell me.”
He was an innocent.
I just told him if he could find out, I would be grateful. He seemed proud to take charge of this task.
The day was growing very hot. The men said that once they finished lunch they were to close up and gently trek over to Lesser Laurel Street. I did wonder what exactly Tiberius was having them do there, but he would show me in his own time.
I left the bar, went to our hired room and had a quiet lie-down.
XXX
I skipped lunch myself. Failure dulls my appetite.
In the room, I peeled off my tunic, kicked off my sandals, then lay down on the pallet that passed for a bed, perspiring. The midday heat oppressed me. Today there was so much humidity in Rome, it was difficult to breathe. I knew I would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, but first I would relax. I would empty my mind, to let my opinion of the case restructure itself naturally. Mulling is an informer’s best weapon.
It was clear that people knew more about what happened at the Garden of the Hesperides than had originally seemed likely. Both the new landlord and Menendra were concealing information. Liberalis, at least, may have been present when the dead met their fates. Menendra knew far more about Rufia than she wanted me to discover.
Since Rufia was such an enigma, I revisited what I knew about her one-time protegee. Artemisia and Orchivia knew Menendra, though this morning at the Four Limpets their attitude to her had looked truculent. If she knew they had already met me, I wondered if she had been trying to persuade them to put the frighteners on for her, with them refusing? With those two, being uncooperative was their normal reaction to anything.
Menendra was a wily, self-assured piece. The two girls were stroppy, but younger. Had she tried to control them? Had they rejected her? Was it possible that what Menendra sold to the bars was organized sexual talent-but sometimes the talent rejected her services? The Dardanians, with their youthful experience in the Danube forts, would not easily submit to a brothel mother. Not when they reckoned they could find punters for themselves.