“You just wish you’d been there. So I let it be known that I might soon need the services of a saga for a condition that must prove embarrassing, since I am unmarried.”
“Julia! You shock me!”
“It is not at all an uncommon subject among this crowd. They trade the names of the most fashionable abortionists just as they do those of pearl sellers and perfumers.”
“Oh, the degeneracy of the times,” I lamented. “Did any familiar names emerge from this colloquy?”
“The first name to be mentioned was Harmodia, but someone said that she had been killed.”
“Do you remember who knew about her murder?” I asked.
“I think it was Sicinia, the one called Swan, because she has such a long neck. Is it important?”
“Probably not. She might have wanted to hire Harmodia, asked around the Flaminius, and found out she’d been murdered.”
“Furia was also recommended. You mentioned her yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” I said.
“But you didn’t tell me everything, did you?”
“No, I did not.” We had come to the shrine of the Lares publici, before which was a low stone railing. I brushed away the dust and we sat. All around us people were carrying on dementedly, having a fine time. A huge man wearing a lion skin and carrying an outsized club performed feats of strength a few steps from us. At the corner of the Sacred Way and the Clivus Orbius a platform had been erected to display Spanish dancers from Gades who were performing one of the famous dances of their district, which were forbidden by law at other times of year because of their extreme lasciviousness.
“Decius! Stop watching those dancers and pay attention!”
“Eh? Oh, yes. Go on. Did you get anything else out of your langorous companions of the bath?”
“One of them said a woman named Ascylta is very trustworthy and that she has a stall beneath arch number sixteen at the Circus Flaminius.”
“Ascylta? At least it doesn’t sound like a Marsian name. It’s Samnite, isn’t it?”
“I think so. And didn’t you say Harmodia’s stall was at the Flaminius?”
“Urgulus said Harmodia had arch nineteen. There were only two between them. Perhaps this Ascylta is a woman I should question.”
“You mean we, Decius. We should question her.”
I sighed. I should have seen this coming. “As always, Julia, I appreciate your help. But I don’t see how your being with me will improve matters.”
“Decius,” she said gently, “I’ve never said this to you before, but you can be uncommonly dense at times. Especially when you are dealing with women. I think I may be able to speak with this woman and gain her confidence. You would come on like a prosecutor and make her shut up in fear.”
“I am not at all intimidating! I am the soul of diplomacy, when I want to be.”
“With all those new cuts and bruises, you are even worse than usual. Not only do you lack tact, you are not even truthful. Now tell me about Furia!”
I was not entirely certain where that had come from, nor how her original assertion had led to her ultimate demand. Nonetheless, I knew better than to hold back. So I told her of my upsetting interview in Furia’s tent. She sat and glowered as she listened.
“And you thought,” she said, when I was finished, “that I would be upset just because you were fondling the udder of that striga?”
“I wasn’t fondling!” I protested. “The woman took possession of my blood-dripping hand and fastened it to her mammary. ‘Udder’ is not a properly descriptive term, in any case. Rather an attractive appendage, if you must know.”
“Spare me,” she said.
“Anyway,” I went on, all but squirming like a schoolboy before an unforgiving master, “it wasn’t that. It was what she said, about being Pluto’s favorite and a hunting dog and a male harpy and all my life being the death of what I love. You know I am not a superstitious man, Julia, but I’ve dealt with frauds all over the world and I know when I am confronted with something different. The woman left a mark on me.”
She took a swallow of the coarse wine and settled down, apparently mollified. “Now tell me the rest of it. What happened last night after you left me?”
The recital didn’t take long. It was the third time I had delivered it, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I was getting good at it. She listened with equanimity until I got to the part about the sacrifice. Then she turned pale and dropped the honey cake she had been about to nibble. She was no hardened power chaser or decadent aristocratic thrill seeker.