“Thanks.”
“Right. If you want an audition, you can start here: my theory is that when you have a disaster to announce to your womenfolk, you should be plotting a real bummer to hold in reserve. While they start wailing about the lost silphium, they can hear about us going into partnership; then the first problem won't sound so bad…”
“So how are you going to tell Helena and Claudia about the silphium?”
“I'm not,” I said. “You are. You want to work for me, this is what happens: the junior goes in and makes them cry-then I come along looking manly and dependable, and mop up their tears.”
I was joking. I reckoned Helena and Claudia had both thought we were mad to attempt the search for silphium, and neither would be the least surprised if we came back empty-handed.
It took us a long time to find them. The gracious Greek city of Cyrene stretched over a large area, with three different central areas. In the northeast lay the Sanctuary of Apollo, where a sacred spring dashed over a rockface into a laurel-bordered basin; in the northwest stood a mighty Temple of Zeus; in the southeast was the acropolis and the agora plus other characteristics of a large Hellenistic spread, to which had been added all the attributes of a great Roman center too. This was a vast city with a great many pretensions, a few of them actually deserved.
We searched the civic center together. There was a large, square handsome forum, enclosed within a walled Doric colonnade, and at its center instead of the rather prim Augustan-style imperial monuments of modern Roman towns, a brazen temple of Bacchus (where the priests had no messages for us). None of the Greeks and native Libyans milling happily together at the basilica had heard of Helena and Claudia, for which I suppose we should have been grateful. We made our way out to the Street of Battus, named for the city's founding king, passed a very small Roman theater, paused to observe a pair of red-striped snails screwing each other into oblivion on the pavement, saw the Greek theater with its wide cold seats to accommodate the big bottoms of the sprawling elite.
We moved on to the agora. There we failed again to find our girls, though we had the chance to admire a naval monument composed of ships' prows and rather sweet dolphins, and towered over by Victory, game girl, in her traditional flying robes. Then on to a king's tomb with a particularly elaborate arrangement of basins and drains to catch the blood of the sacrifices killed outside in a smart circular portico. Among the shops were a whole row of perfumiers, scenting the air with the famous attar of Cyrenian roses. Fine: if you had a willing woman to buy it for. I was beginning to think the people we brought with us to Cyrena?ca had all bunked off home. Apart from Famia, no doubt, who would be lying drunk in a gutter somewhere.
The exotic aura was getting us down. The huge city was deeply Greek, with compressed, wide-bellied red Doric columns where we were accustomed to taller, straighter, grayer travertine in the Ionic or Corinthian mode, and with austere metopes and triglyphs below plain friezes where we would expect elaborate statuary. There were too many gymnasia and not enough baths. Its mixed, carefree population were all alien to us. There were even lingering traces of the Ptolemies, who once treated Cyrene as an outpost of Egypt. Everyone spoke Greek, which we could do if we had to, though it was a strain for weary travelers. All the inscriptions had Greek for their first, or only, language. The ancient influences made us feel like upstart New Men.
We needed to split up. Justinus would try the Sanctuary of Apollo in the lower town; I would march out to the Temple of Zeus.
I had picked the long straw for once. As I walked through the clear air of the pine woods to the eastern side of the high plateau on which the city had been founded, I had already cheered up. Soon I came upon the Temple. Amongst all the rich endowments in this city of overflowing coffers, the Temple of Zeus had been favored with an aloof, authoritative location and a most celebrated statue: a copy of the Phidias Zeus at Olympia. In case I never made it to the sanctuary at Olympia, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, I would have liked to take a squint at the Cyrenian replica. I knew the legendary forty-foot-high masterpiece showed sublime Zeus enthroned in cedarwood and black marble, himself in ivory with enameled robes, a solid gold beard, and solid gold hair-some sight. But here at Cyrene my attention was distracted by an even more winsome spectacle than a famous Phidias.
This was a drowsy spot (though beset with pernicious flies). Squat Doric columns supporting a massive architrave and frieze spoke of the Temple's immense age. Descending its front steps between the magisterial columns, perhaps after renewing a message she had left for me, was a tall young woman in a floating white outfit, who stopped looking superior and shrieked with excitement immediately she saw me.
Very nice. Ignoring protocol, she skipped down from the podium and I grabbed her. Excuse me, Zeus. Well, anyone who seduced that many women ought to understand.
Helena did not have to ask what had happened. That saved a long explanation, and stopped me feeling depressed.
She took me to the peaceful house she and Claudia were renting, sat me in a Greek chair with the baby in my arms, sent Gaius out to look for her brother, sent Claudia shopping, then brushed aside the heartbreaking story of our disaster, while she instead amused me with what I had missed.
“Famia is down in Apollonia, very restless now; he has purchased a good collection of horses-well, so he thinks-and he wants to sail home.”
“I'm ready.”
“He needs you to help commission a ship. We received some letters from Rome. I opened yours, in case there was a crisis-”
“You have my full confidence, beloved.”
“Yes, I decided that! Petronius has written. He is back working with the vigiles; his wife won't be reconciled; she has a boyfriend Petro disapproves of; she won't let him see the children. He says he's sorry he missed you reciting your poetry.”
“Sorry as Hades!”
“Lenia is threatening to kill you because you promised to help Smaractus obtain a contract at the new amphitheater opening-”
“That was so Smaractus would agree to her divorce.”
“He still has not signed the documents. Petro must have seen Maia; she's a lot happier without Famia there. Your mother is well, but annoyed at how you abandoned Anacrites; Anacrites had been hanging around looking for you, but Petro has not seen him for a while and there's a rumor he has left town-”
“Usual gossip.” Anacrites leave town? Where would he go? “I like going on holiday. I get far more of the news that way.”
“And Petronius says you keep being sent urgent messages from the Palatine Bureau of Beaks-”
I smiled lazily. My feet were on elegant black and white mosaics; a fountain splashed refreshingly in the cool, open atrium. Julia Junilla had remembered me well enough to smack me in the ear with a flailing hand, then scream to be put down so she could play with her pig rattle.
“The Sacred Geese again, eh?” Bugger that. I leaned my head back, smiling. “Anything else?” I had sensed there was more.
“Just a letter from the Emperor.” The old man? Well, that couldn't be important. I let Helena choose whether to tell me about it. Her dark eyes were gentle as she enjoyed herself: “Your fee has been reexamined, and you are to be paid what you asked.”
I sat up and whistled. “ Io!-In full?”
“The percentage you wanted.”
“Then I am a substantial citizen…” The implications were too great to consider all at once. “So what does he want?”
“There is a note in his own hand to say Vespasian invites you to a formal audience about what happened with the Capitol geese.”
I really would have to deal with that. I was getting bored with being nagged.
“I love you,” I murmured, pulling her close. The white dress she was wearing was extremely attractive, but the best thing about it was the way the sleeve buttons were loose enough to admit wandering hands. In fact, they slipped easily right out of their fastenings…
“You'll love me even more,” said Helena, smiling invitingly, “when I tell you that you even have a new client.”
