Lalage gave me the full benefit of those wonderful eyes. `Oh hardly!'
`I'm crushed! By the way, you can stop flashing the peepers. They're lovely, but it's too early in the morning for me – or not early enough. I like a roll in the sheets instead of breakfast, but I like it with a woman who has been in my arms all night.'
`I'll put that in our scroll of client's preferences.'
`I'm not enrolled as a client.'
`Want to negotiate terms?'
`Sorry, can't afford it. I'm saving up to go to philosophy school, 'Don't bother. You ramble on enough, without paying to be taught.'
She was still too close for comfort. I resisted manfully. We fought eye to eye; she must have known I was afraid she would manhandle me. The hairs on my neck were standing as stiff as a badger's bristles. It was hard to look tough when every nerve was screaming to me to protect my assets from assault – but the assault never came. For a brothel queen Lalage was surprisingly delicate.
`I want to negotiate a truce,' I croaked. She received the news with a chortle, but waved me to a couch with her. Breathing more freely, I perched on the far end. She tipped her head back, surveying me. She had a long, smooth neck, today unadorned by jewellery. Her eyelashes swept down and up again with the strength and fluid grace of trireme oars.
I sighed gently. `Stop acting up like Thais. Your name's Rillia Gratiana. Your parents used to keep a stationer's shop on the corner of Dogfish Court.'
. She did not deny it. Nor did she encourage me. Appealing to old memories would be no help. `I keep this brothel, Falco. I do it well. I run the girls, I control the clients, I organise salty entertainments; I keep the ledgers and I obtain the necessary licences; I pay the rent, and I pay the grocery bills; when I have to I even sweep the stairs and lance the doorman's boils. This is my life.'
`And the past is irrelevant?'
`Not at all. My parents gave me all my local knowledge and commercial acumen.'
`Do you still see them?'
`They died years ago.'
`Want to know how I know all about you?'
`Don't bother. You're an informer. Even if you tell me some sob story, I won't be impressed.'
`I thought a brothel was the place men told the truth about themselves?'
`Men never tell the truth, Falco.'
'Ah no, we don't know what truth is… So can I call on fellow feeling?'
`No,' she said. That was even before she remembered how she came by her wounded ear. She was clearly not thinking about it, though seeing the scar again, I felt a warm sense of nostalgia.
We were both professionals. For different reasons we were attuned to the surges of communication – in my case talk, in hers the other thing. A cycle in this conversation had exhausted itself. By mutual agreement we gave up and relaxed.
I would have said neither of us had given any ground in the repartee stage, but then Lalage started playing with the clasp of a bracelet fretfully. Maybe she was weakening. (Maybe the arm decoration just had a tricky hook and loop.) 'So what do you want?' she asked again.
`To give you a word from a friend.'
`Oh?,
'You're driving me mad with that thing. Take it off and I'll mend it.' Surprised, she gave up trying to fix the bracelet and tossed it in my lap. It was a gorgeous bauble: fine gold scrollwork in sections, holding pale emeralds. Expensive, but ruined by the usual trashy clasp. `Got some tweezers?' She provided me with a handsome set, six or seven assorted toiletry tools on a ring. `Jewellers are stupid bastards.' I was working on a bent piece of gold wire that needed to be reshaped. `They spend hours of labour on the fancy parts, but begrudge a decent hook. That should hold. If you like the piece, get a new fastener.' I held out my hand for her arm. When I had replaced the bracelet on her scented wrist, I kept hold of her. My grip was friendly, but inescapable. She made no attempt to break away; prostitutes know when to avoid hurting themselves. I looked straight at her. 'Balbinus is in Rome.'
Her fine eyes narrowed. It was impossible to tell whether she was hearing this for the first time, or merely wished me to think so. Her mouth pursed. `That's bad news.'
`For everyone. Have any vigiles been to see you?'
`Not since you and your long friend.' I felt I could believe her when she was being factual. That could be a trick, of course.
'You can see the implications?'
`Not exactly. Balbinus is condemned. What can he do, Falco?'
`Quite a lot, it seems. The Fourth Cohort have been busting themselves trying to work out who was trying to replace him when all the time nobody was. Everything that's happened lately could be down to him.'
`Like what?'
`The Emporium raid, and the one at the Saepta. The deaths. You have presumably heard about the deaths?'
`Whose deaths are these?' she murmured, deliberately provoking me.
`Don't come it.'
There was no visible hardening; she remained the polite courtesan. But she said, without any change of tone, `If you don't want to pay for mauling me, would you mind letting go of my wrist?'
I gave her a stare, then opened my hand abruptly, fingers splayed. She waited a beat, then took back her arm., `I want to talk about Balbinus,' I said.
`And I don't.'
I looked at her carefully, seeing past the elegant attire, the fine paintwork on her eyelids and lashes, the allure of the gorgeous body. There were tiny lines and dark patches around those languorous, limpid brown eyes. `You're tired. The brothel's very quiet this morning too. What's up, Lalage? Having to work overtime at nights? Why's this? Someone squeezing you? Can it be that the profit margins of the Bower of Venus are being reduced by having to pay a managing director's fee again?'
`Take a jump in the river, Falco.'
`I'm surprised. I thought you enjoyed your independence, lass. I must admit, I respected you for it. I can't believe Balbinus just turned up and asked for a cut, and you gave it to him!'
`Don't even think it. I wouldn't give him half an as if he was bursting for the lavatory. Balbinus can't pressure me these days. He's condemned. If he's in Rome he'll have to stay in hiding, or he's for it.'
`Execution,' I agreed. Then I challenged her: `So you're not concealing him on the premises?'
She laughed.
I decided to accept her version. I had believed her when she talked of running the brothel without a protector. `You still ought to take an interest,' I warned. `Someone must be helping him, but if it's not you, you fall into the other category.'
`And what's that, Falco?'
`His enemies.'
There was a pause. Lalage had always been intelligent, top of the class when she went to school; I happened to know that. Finally she rasped, `You're talking about deaths again.'
`Nonnius Albius,' I confirmed. She must have known about his killing. `And the doctor who convinced Nonnius he was dying, the one who frightened him so much he felt prepared to turn Balbinus in. That was wrong, incidentally. The vigiles had set him up.'
I was hoping to shock her into making relevations but it was Lalage who surprised me. She laughed again, though somewhat bitterly. `Not entirely,' she said. Enjoying the thrill of seeing me startled, she stretched as gracefully as a panther; the action was automatic, not meant to be enticing, but I had to control myself. She smiled wryly. `It would only have been a set-up if Nonnius hadn't known about it.'`What do you mean?'
`Nonnius realised all along that the Fourth Cohort had sent that doctor to lie to him.'
Luckily Petronius Longus was no longer speaking to me, so I would be spared having to tell him this depressing news.
