In no time I was rejoined by my hostess. I took a good look, while pretending not to. She knew I was inspecting her.

Closer to twenty than thirty, she was now looking a stunner in a flowing gown of mobile ocher material and dainty gold mules which showed her toes. Gripped under one arm were a decorated hand mirror and what looked like a cosmetics box. She had discarded the diadem and, as we talked, she untied various ribbons and shook out her traditionally plaited braids until her hair flowed loose. Gleaming in the lamplight, it was a rich chestnut, the long locks probably never cut since she first came to the Vestals' House.

Bending up one small foot under her, she dropped onto the couch at the other end, with s.p.a.ce between us. She balanced the mirror on her knee. Then she proceeded to light a small brazier, using the wick in one of the lamps.

"I see you're used to handling fire!"

Despite my pang of disquiet, the brazier was for neither witchcraft nor anything religious; it was to heat her curling iron. So there I was, illegally inside the House of the Vestals, watching a very much off-duty Virgin while she dipped her comb in a basin of water and restyled her hair.

"Yes, we are allowed relaxation," she commented, at my bemused look. Her hands twisted the hot iron with great competence. "Our free time is entirely our own. n.o.body bothers us, so long as the Chief Vestal never notices any loud music or perfumes that have disturbingly erotic Parthian undernotes."

"So the simple, celibate life doesn't bother you?"

Her eyes, which were midbrown and well set, glinted. "It has a few disadvantages."

"Not many visitors?"

"You're my first, Falco!"

"Lucky me. My friend Petronius reckons all the Virgins must be lesbians."

"Some may be." Not this one, I decided.

"Or that really they have secret lovers scampering in and out all night."

"Some may do." She gave little away, but added some more suggestions: "Or that we are all crabby, dried-up frights who want to dispossess men--or that simplicity of life means black teeth and body smells?"

"Yes, I believe those are other popular theories."

"From time to time I expect they all apply. Why generalize? Any group of six people would contain all kinds of characters. What do you think, Falco?"

I thought a lot that I was not prepared to say. For instance, I liked the way she had made cheeky little ringlets to hang in front of her ears. "You sound as if you were born on the wrong side of the Sacred Way. A token plebeian, right?"

Constantia shrugged. Her ringlets bobbed. Her accent was in fact perfectly neutral, but of course she would have been trained to speak acceptably. It was her outspoken, sprightly att.i.tude that had given her away. "You feel I don't fit in?" I nodded. "Wrong, Falco. This is my career, and I am proud of it. Oh, I never expect to become Chief Vestal, but you won't find me skimping the duties or dishonoring the G.o.ds."

"No doubt your salt cakes are impeccable."

"Exactly. I am planning to open a cake stall after I retire."

"I would have thought you would take the imperial dowry and get married?"

Constantia looked at me sideways as she twirled a lock of hair free from the iron. "That will depend on what is on offer at the time!"

I thought not many men would feel up to taking on this lively character.

Applying her curler to the heat again, she wiped off s.m.u.ts on a soft cloth, then wound a new strand of hair around the metal bar.

"If you have the iron too hot, all your hair will snap off." She gave me a look that made me retract. "Well, so I have been told. I a.s.sume you have to be braided up again demurely tomorrow to attend the lottery?" Constantia paused, realizing that this was what I had come to talk about. I handed her the mirror so she could check the progress of her coiffure. "I have been searching for the lost child."

"But you failed to find her." It was a blank statement, one that put me in my place.

"Ah, you know? I suppose as the virginal liaison point, you have been receiving hourly reports?"

"As well as almost hourly demands to discuss the issue with your girlfriend." That came out as somewhat critical.

"Helena Justina is extremely persistent."

"Now she has sent you?"

"No, she knows nothing about it. I intrude on women on my own account."

"She will find out."

"I shall tell her myself."

"Will she be annoyed?"

"Why? She knows how much I desperately need to speak to you about Gaia Laelia. I climbed in the window after reasonable requests failed, not because I was looking for a cheap thrill."

"More expensive than cheap, if you are caught, Falco."

"Don't I know it! So why is there this obsessive secrecy about the high-flown Laelii?"

Constantia put aside her feminine dib-dabs and leaned towards me earnestly. Her gown was modestly pinned, yet I felt an odd quirk of alarm just at seeing a Virgin's pale bare neck above the gown's loose dark yellow folds. "Never mind why, Falco."

I was annoyed. She ignored it. "All right; what about Gaia? I know she talked to you about becoming a Virgin--first at the reception for the Queen of Judaea. Her mother tells me she was brought back afterwards too?"

"Yes."

"So what worries did she want to talk about?"

"Only being a Virgin. I thought the dear little thing had a wonderful enquiring att.i.tude. A most promising candidate. She consulted me about all the rituals. Naturally, I was as helpful as I could be."

"I am consulting you now," I growled. "And you are not helping me."

"Oh dear!" Her pout would not have disgraced any slightly tight tavern waitress flirting with a customer.

I restrained my annoyance. "Gaia told me somebody in her family wanted to kill her. Jupiter, what in Olympus will it take to make anyone in authority listen and regard this as serious?"

"Nothing. She told me the same. I thought it was the truth."

I leaned back on the couch, finally feeling that some mad nightmare might be ending. I breathed slowly. My troubles were not over, however. The Vestal in whose private apartment I was dallying reached over and stroked my forehead, then offered me wine.

She had a Syrian gla.s.s jug on a chased tray. She cannot have known I was coming to see her; it must be her regular nightcap. There was only one goblet. We agreed it would be unwise to send out for another one.

"What do you think?" she asked courteously as I sipped. "I don't know the name, but I am promised it is good."

"Very nice." I did not recognize its vintage either, but whatever the grape and origin, it was more than acceptable. I would like to have tried it on Petro. In fact, I would have liked to show Petro this whole situation and watch him shoot off into a catalogue of howling incredulity. "A gift from an admirer?"

"Honoring Vesta."

"Very devout. So what did Gaia say?" I refused to be sidetracked. "Which of them has threatened her?"

"n.o.body will harm her. She is in no danger, Falco."

"You know something!"

"I know she is now safe from anyone in her family. But I cannot say where she is. n.o.body knows that. You have to discover the answer."

"Why should I?" My temper was up now. "I have already spent all day on this. I am exhausted, and baffled by the hindrances put in my way. What is the point? If I knew what Gaia was afraid of, I could find her more easily."

"I don't think so, Falco."

The girl continued plying me with wine, but I knew that old trick. Perhaps she sensed it, because she took the goblet from me and had a drink herself.

I grabbed the goblet back, then set it down smartly on its tray. "Concentrate! I thought Gaia might have been troubled by the evil ways of nasty 'Uncle Tiberius.' Did she mention him?"

"Oh, he was a filthy article," Constantia admitted immediately.

"Then whyever would a retired Vestal like Terentia Paulla marry him?"

"Because he was rich?"

"A rich b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"He fooled Terentia into believing that he wanted her."

"He was rich and she was foolish?"

"You are not going to give up?"

"No."

"All right." She had decided to give me something. It might not be everything (few women do that on a first acquaintance, after all; least of all sworn virgins). "Terentia married him," said Constantia, "because he told her she was the one he had always really wanted. She was thrilled. She took him out of misplaced flattery, and a little spite perhaps--because he was the lover that her married sister had flaunted at her for years."

XLIV.

I FOLDED MY arms and stretched out my boots, crossing my ankles. I was now feeling desperately tired.

What would this have meant to Gaia? Yet more explosions in the family, that was certain. I now understood all too clearly what had been meant when I was told that "Uncle Tiberius" had been an "old friend" of the family.

I knew that Terentia Paulla had retired as a Vestal about eighteen months ago. She had been married for just under a year. This was June. Her sister, the ex-Flamen had said, had died in July last year. "The Vestal's wedding and the Flaminica's death must have virtually coincided."

"Probably so." I sensed that Constantia now wanted to close up. Her bright eyes were watching me. I could live with that, if she liked the novelty of gazing at a handsome dog with tousled curls and an endearing grin--not to mention, of course, the faintly etched brow crease that hinted at my thoughtful, sensitive side.

She made a decent picture herself. She might look severe when she was attired in her religious robes, but she had regular features lit with obvious intelligence; off duty, she was a very pretty girl. As a centurion's daughter or a tribune's wife, she would have been the toast of any legion, and an inevitable source of problems among the men.

Thankfully, pretty girls present no problem to me.

"The Flaminica--Statilia Paulla, wasn't that her name?--died very suddenly, I heard. Do you happen to know what caused it?"

"Apart from fury at her sister's announcement of her marriage?" Constantia bit her lip. "I do know, actually. She had a tumor. She had confided in the Chief Vestal--probably not just to share the tragedy, but to annoy her sister, who was not being made a confidante."

"Had everyone in the family known about the Flaminica's long affair?"

"I should think so. Not little Gaia."

"Does that mean even the Flamen knew?"

"It had always been accepted tacitly. Theirs was a marriage in form only."

"He must have had feelings on the subject. When he talked about his wife was the only time I saw any signs of animation."

"That," said Constantia coldly, "is simply because he blames his wife for dying and robbing him of his position."

"You are very hard." She made no reply. "Was Gaia fond of her grandmother?"

"You mean, did the Flaminica's death upset her? I think the child was closer to Terentia. Terentia has made a big pet of Gaia. I gather she has even talked of making Gaia her heir."

"What about Laelius Scaurus? I thought he was Terentia's favorite?"

"Yes," said Constantia, playing with one of her ringlets. "But he remains in his father's paternal control, so he cannot hold property."

"What's the difference?"

"None, as things are. Gaia is also in the guardianship of her grandfather. But if Gaia were to become a Vestal Virgin, once she came to the House of the Vestals she--unlike her other relations--would be ent.i.tled to her own property. She could also make a will."

This was intriguing. "So then if Terentia died, and Gaia inherited, the loot would belong to her immediately and might eventually be left by her outside the family--whereas if Gaia fails fails to become a Vestal, anything Terentia leaves either to Gaia or her father will be controlled by Laelius Numentinus from the moment of probate." to become a Vestal, anything Terentia leaves either to Gaia or her father will be controlled by Laelius Numentinus from the moment of probate."

"While he lives. Then the position of head of household moves down to Laelius Scaurus."

"Whom even his loving aunt may regard as a rather unworldly fellow to be put in control. . . . But if he upsets his father too much, Numentinus could disinherit him."

"You seem very excited by this, Falco."

I gave Constantia my best grin. "Well, it might explain many things. In their huge mansion stuffed full of slaves on the Aventine, the Laelii consider themselves to be living in genteel poverty."

Constantia, a girl with a nature that I could take to, raised her eyebrows. "Poor them!" she said scathingly.

"I am wondering now," I pondered, "whether somebody in her family has hidden Gaia away deliberately, to ensure she should not not be selected in the lottery and made financially independent." be selected in the lottery and made financially independent."