Poseidon s Gold

'Still got those then?' I chivvied, trying to make light of it.

'It's where he always kept them overnight,' replied Uncle Junius. 'Phoebe put them there before the funeral, and no one has the heart to remove them now.'

I had to explain to Helena. 'Great-Uncle Scaro, one of life's eccentrics, once had his mouth attended to by an Etruscan dentist. Thereafter he became a passionate devotee of Etruscan bridge-work-which is a high art form, if you can afford the gold wire. Eventually poor Scaro had no teeth left to attach the wires to, and no money, come to that. So he tried to invent his own false teeth.'

'Are those them?' Helena enquired politely.

'Yup!' said Junius.

'Goodness. Did they work?'

'Yup!' Junius was plainly wondering if the senator's daughter might be a candidate for his doleful attentions. Helena, who had a fine sense of discretion, kept close to me.

'These were model four,' I reminisced. Uncle Scaro thought a lot of me; he always kept me informed on the progress of his inventive schemes. I thought best to omit that some teeth on model four had come from a dead dog. 'They worked perfectly. You could chew an ox bone with them. You could tackle nuts, or fruit with pips. Unfortunately, Scaro choked on them.'

Helena looked heartbroken.

'Don't worry,' said Uncle Junius kindly. 'He would have seen it as part of his research. Swallowing them by accident was just how the old beggar would have wanted to go.'

Uncle Scaro's teeth smiled gently from the lararium as if he were still wearing them.

He would have liked my new girlfriend. I wished he were here to see her. It gave me a pang to leave Helena standing there, solemnly dusting his teeth with the end of her stole.

There was very little of interest in the store. Just a few broken wicker chairs, a chest with its lid staved in, a dented bucket and some straw-dust.

Also, standing at the back like a row of gloomy tombstones for Cyclops, four huge rectangular blocks of quarried stone.

'What are those, Junius?'

My uncle shrugged. A life of confusion and intrigue had made him wary of asking questions. He was afraid he might discover a long-lost heir with a claim on his land, or the taint of a witch's prophecy that could blight his efforts with the neighbour's luscious wife or get him into a ten-year feud with the ox-cart mender. 'Something Festus must have left,' he mumbled nervously.

'Did he say anything about them?'

'I wasn't here then.'

'Off with a woman?'

He gave me a nasty look. 'Bloody Fabius might know.'

If Fabius knew, Phoebe knew as well. We walked thoughtfully back to the house.

Great-Auntie Phoebe was telling Helena about the time a crazy horseman whom we later discovered might have been the Emperor Nero fleeing from Rome to commit suicide (a minor aspect, the way Phoebe told it), galloped too fast past the market garden and killed half her chickens in the road. She did not know what the stone blocks were, but told me Festus had brought them on that famous last leave of his. I did find out from her, however, that two men who must have been Censorinus and Laurentius had come to the farm asking questions some months ago.

'They wanted to know if Festus had left anything here.'

'Did they mention the stone blocks?'

'No. They were very secretive.'

'Did you show them the store?'

'No. You know Fabius-' I did. He was a suspicious bastard at the best of times. 'He just took them out to an old barn we have full of ploughing equipment, then he played the country idiot.'

'So what happened?'

'It was down to me as usual.' Great-Auntie Phoebe liked to be seen as a woman of character.

'How did you get rid of them?'

'I showed them Scaro's teeth on the lararium and said those were all we had left of the last unwanted stranger-then I set the dogs on them.'

Next day we set off south again. I told Pa about the four blocks of stone. We both pondered the mystery without comment, but I was starting to have ideas, and if I knew him he was too.

He told me Censorinus and another soldier had stayed at the mansio.

'Old news!' Helena and I relayed Phoebe's tale.

'So I wasted my time! It was a lousy inn,' moaned my father. 'I suppose you two were being pampered in the lap of luxury?'

'We were!' I assured him. 'If you can stand hearing about Phoebe's chickens, and listening to Junius complaining about his brother, then it's a grand place to stay!' Pa knew that.

'I expect Junius had his eye on your girl?' he hinted, trying to annoy me in return. Helena raised the elegant curves of her eyebrows.

'He was thinking about it. I nearly took him on one side and had a quiet word-but if I know Junius, warning him against it is the certain way to make him do something.'

Pa agreed. 'It's as pointless as shouting "He's behind you!" when the Spook starts looming at the Honest Old Father in an Atellan farce: Where was drippy Fabius?'

'Off with his old trouble.'

'I can never remember what his trouble is.'

'Neither can I,' I confessed. 'Either gambling or boils, I think. He ran away to be a gladiator once, but that was only a passing aberration when he wanted to avoid the lupin harvest.'

'Phoebe asked after you, Didius Geminus,' said Helena in a stern voice. She seemed to think we were being frivolous in our discussion of the family news.

'I suppose the actual enquiry was, "How's that useless city mollock who fathered you?"' grunted Pa to me. He knew what they all thought.

He had always known. Being constantly despised by my mother's peculiar relatives must have been one of the trials that had eventually proved too dreary to endure.

IXL

Capua.

Capua, Queen of the central plain (and home of smart fleas).

Capua, the most splendidly flourishing city in rich Campania (if you listen to the Capuans) or even in Italy (if you get stuck with one of those who has never seen Rome).

Do not fail to view the grand Augustan amphitheatre, which stands four storeys high with its eighty great arches all capped with marble deities-though it is more recent than Spartacus, so don't get romantic political ideas. Also, while viewing this splendid edifice, keep your eyes in the back of your head and your hand on your purse. The people of Capua earn their livelihood from visitors, and they do not always ask before claiming it. Never forget: they are so flourishing because we are so stupid. What's yours can become theirs very rapidly in Capua.

When Capua opened its doors and its heart to Hannibal, it is said that its luxury sapped his men so much that he never won another battle. We could have endured some luxury of this disgraceful quality, but things have changed since then.

We drove into Capua on a wet Monday evening, in time to find all the eateries closing up. One carriage-horse went lame just as we reached the forum, giving us an uneasy sensation that it might not be possible to drive home when we wanted to escape. My father, who had come to protect us with his special knowledge of this area, had his money pinched within two minutes. Luckily, our main cash was hidden under the floor of our carriage, with Helena's sensible feet guarding it.

'I'm out of practice,' grumbled Pa.

'That's all right. I always make a mess of choosing my travelling companions and end up nursemaiding incompetents.'

'Thanks!' muttered Helena.

'You were not included.'

'My hero!'

After ten days of misery, which ought to have been a bare week of mild pain, we were all on the edge of rebellion.