But Fortune offered one kind nod. Didius Falco and Helena Justina gave me a better life. At the end of this month they would see me married to a good man, and I knew they would both shed tears for my happiness, knowing their own part in it. They had come across a child in misery and instinctively plucked her from it. They never dwelt on their benevolence. But on my wedding day, they would be prouder than most parents.
I felt troubled here, being reminded what they had saved me from. A deep-seated fear always lurked that my rescue was an illusion; security could be snatched away. Coming to this area, on top of my admissions to the Macedonians, unnerved me. As for them, I wished now that I had not taken them into my confidence. I hoped they never told anyone what I had said.
As soon as I started looking, I knew nobody in the White Chickens brothels stood a chance of escaping to respectability. Ordinary people could walk down the Vicus Longus or the Vicus Patricius, the long highways that ran on either side of the Viminal Hill, and never notice what was here. Once you stopped, once you began to see it, the area was dire.
There were entire tenements given over to brothels, each with the procuress either lolling outside on a wooden stool or just visible as she lurked indoors. Working women hung around on the streets, openly eyeing up potential customers, calling out invitations. Men lingered, hardly distinguishable, whether they were prospective clients or the sorry pimps and enforcers who were attached to the brothels.
Suddenly I saw Chia. She was alone now and at once I hailed her. She greeted me with a wan smile on her childlike face. I went up to her and said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but in case you absolutely want an abortionist, the one in the Ten Traders is called Nona.” I could hardly forgive myself for telling her, but I pitied her position. “Ask at the bakery stall opposite the public facilities, Chia; the girls serving bread will direct you. They call her the wise woman.”
“Have you-?”
“No. Not me. I had to speak to her about my investigation.”
Chia was perfectly open: “Thank you. I have to find someone. There is a person the brothel uses, but I don’t like her.”
She asked what I was doing in the White Chickens. I said I was looking for my sister. I had to give a reason; a search for a runaway made sense. Chia was too immature to work out that I had another motive. She seemed to be heading to her room. As sweetly as my real sisters taking a girlfriend home for almond cakes, she offered to show me where she lived.
It was a full-scale brothel, reeking so much of dirt and lamp soot that after I left its smell would be ingrained in my hair, clothes and the very pores of my skin. Extending up for several stories, all completely occupied by working girls, the building was divided into many similar small, windowless rooms, so oil lamps were everywhere, some smoking langorously even by day.
The place was better run than I expected. The accounts manager, on a high stool with a record tablet, could have been chief clerk in any respectable business. They had a hairdresser (who looked as though she probably served her turn on a pallet when required) and a boy with a water basin so clients could wash afterward. Maybe the girls could use that basin of his, though somehow I thought not. His towel looked as if it was used by everyone for days on end without being laundered. Even the boy himself had a used look. Men could certainly bugger him, probably without paying extra.
Chia led me upstairs to her cubicle. On the way we passed other rooms, some with closed doors as they were in use, some open so visitors could see the wares on offer. Half-naked women were visible inside, most looking far from erotic, more like schoolgirls lolling in their bedrooms. I almost expected to see dolls and miniature farms on show, but I was a realist; these young people had probably never owned playthings as children. All they knew now were sex toys.
House-proud whores had draped curtains across their doorways, some looped up with string tie-backs while they were waiting for a customer. Each had a painted sign above the door showing a couple (well it was usually a couple) engaged in whatever sexual position that woman performed. The variety made me blink. Each room had a sign dangling from a hook, giving the occupant’s name and price, then “engaged” when she turned the tablet over. It was lunchtime now, so quite a few rooms had closed doors. I heard few cries of pleasure from within. Trade here must be a mechanical, laconic business.
Chia’s little cubicle was dark, mean and as smelly as the rest. I suppose after a time the women got used to that notorious brothel odor. Inside, she had a basic single bed, covered with a threadbare blanket and graced with a lifeless pillow in a striped case. When she was in, the room was lit by one pottery oil lamp. Chia took it in order to light it from another in the dark corridor.
I could then see that unlike my room or my sisters, this was not littered with clothes, shoes, scarves, cosmetics, jewelry boxes, pink glass perfume bottles shaped like birds, miniature statuette collections, musical instruments on which somebody had once had three lessons, scroll sets or vases. Chia’s cubicle had no clutter at all. At least that saved her being nagged to tidy it. I saw no evidence that this building was ever subjected to housework. The crud on the floors and door frames looked prehistoric.
“So this is your little nest, Chia!”
Again, she gave me that sad, wan smile. She had dark hair and soft eyes; the customers probably thought her a pretty one, though she was simply young. The skinny mite had tiny hands and baby fingers; she looked no more than fifteen, unformed and a little backward with it. I think she could see she broke my heart.
“It’s all right,” she urged, as if reassuring me. “I’m used to it. They give me food and clothes. I have a job. The other girls are like a big family.”
She spoke as if she thought herself lucky; she just had to stick with it.
I sat beside her on her bed, trying not to imagine who else had been there or to notice what traces they had left behind. How could any man with self-respect come to a place like this-let alone carry out what ought to be an intimate act among such public squalor? “Do you do well, Chia?”
“Oh yes,” she agreed seriously. “I look young. A lot of the men ask for that.”
At this rate she would soon look older. Then how would she fare? “So do they treat you nicely?”
“Some.”
“And the rest?”
She pulled a face, though seemed acquiescent. “They want to call me a naughty girl and punish me.” She saw my look. “Oh, it’s just a game, Flavia Albia. Close your eyes and forget it. Soon be over.” That must be what the pimp had told her.
“So,” I said gently, “I am wondering about you. I am thinking, can you manage to escape being downtrodden? Will you one day grow into a force to be reckoned with, like Rufia at the Hesperides?” It was a ridiculous thought. She was so pallid, I knew the answer.
“Or Menendra?” Giving me a sly look, Chia knew what my interest really was.
“The elusive Lycian? Apart from issuing threats to all and sundry, I am still not clear what Menendra does. According to her she supplies bars, but it’s very vague what she supplies them with.”
Chia seemed to be considering. We were friends now, special cronies for the moment. I did not trust it to last, but I might as well exploit it. “They didn’t want to tell you,” she said.
Ah. One of those moments. An informer lives for this.
“Your Macedonian friends? Didn’t want to tell me what, Chia darling?”
“Menendra does go round and sells stuff to the cookshops. But I told you.” I raised my brows, puzzled. “She’s that one I said about.” Chia seemed surprised I had failed to grasp this. “She’s horrid. She scares me. That’s why I don’t want to go to her for help. It’s her this place uses for the girls-” She spelled it out for me, almost exasperated I was being dense about it. “Albia-she gets rid of babies.”