“Uncle Marcus, Mother told me not to let you ask me a lot of questions, unless she was there.” Cloelia was eight, far more mature than Gaia had been, less obviously self-assured with strangers, but in my view probably more intelligent. I was no stranger, of course; I was just crazy Uncle Marcus, a man with a ridiculous occupation and new social pretensions, whom her female relations had taught her to scoff at.
“That’s all right. You just may be able to help me with something important.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know anything,” said Cloelia, smirking. She was a typical witness. Anything she did know would have to be screwed out of her. If Helena had not been watching with a disapproving glare, I might have tried the normal inducement (offering money). Instead, I could only grin gamely. Cloelia fixed her eyes ahead, satisfied that I was in my place.
“Suppose I ask the questions,” suggested Helena. “What did you think of the Queen then, Cloelia?”
“I didn’t like the scent she smelled of. And she only wanted to talk to the right people.”
“Who were they? ”
“Well, not us, obviously. We stood out a bit. My mother’s dress was much brighter than all the others; I had told her it would be. She did it on purpose, I suppose. And then I had to keep telling everyone my father works among the charioteers. Well, Helena Justina, you can imagine what they thought of that!” She paused. “Used to work,” she corrected herself in a quieter voice.
I took her other hand.
After a moment, she looked up at me again. “I can’t be a Vestal now, you know. We had to be examined to ensure we were all sound in every limb-and they told us the other particular was that you have to have both parents alive. So you see, I don’t qualify any longer. Neither Rhea nor I ever will. Anyway, it’s probably better if I stay at home and help Mother.”
“True,” I said, feeling nonplussed as I often did. Maia’s children were more grown up in some ways than our own generation. “Tell me, Cloelia, did you meet the little girl called Gaia Laelia?”
“You know I did.”
“Just testing.”
“She was the one who might be selected.”
“By the Fates?”
“Oh Uncle Marcus, don’t be so silly!”
“Cloelia, I don’t mind if you believe state lotteries are fixed, but please don’t tell anyone that I said so.”
“Don’t worry. Marius and I have decided we won’t ever tell anyone we even know you.”
“You think Uncle Marcus is a scamp?” asked Helena, pretending to be shocked. Cloelia looked prim. “You and Gaia Laelia became quite friendly, didn’t you?”
A scornful expression crossed my niece’s face. “Not really. She is only six!”
An easy one to miscalculate. For adults the little girls were a single group. But they ranged in age between six and ten, and within the hierarchies of childhood rolled enormous gulfs.
“But you did talk to her?” Helena asked.
“She was lonely. Once we could all see she had been singled out, none of the other girls would speak to her. Of course,” said Cloelia, “after they thought about it, there were some who would have swarmed all over her. She could have been very popular. But then their mothers got sniffy and grabbed their precious darlings close to them.”
“Not your mother?”
“I dodged her.”
Helena and I exchanged a quick glance. We had slowed our pace through the Forum Boarium, but we were now passing the Basilica Julia, fighting our way through the crowds that always milled on the steps in a haze of overused hair pomade.
I decided to be frank. “Cloelia, as your mother has probably told you, something bad may have happened to little Gaia, and what she talked about to you may help me help her.”
“We just played at being Vestal Virgins.” Cloelia had been ready for me. “All she wanted to do was pretend to be fetching water from the Spring of Egeria and sprinkling it in the temple like the Virgins have to do. She just kept on playing the same game. I got really bored.”
“Before that, didn’t she throw a little tantrum when she was sitting on the Queen’s lap?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t hear what it was about?”
“No.”
“Did you think Gaia was happy to be put forward as a Virgin?”
“I suppose so.”
“Did she say anything to you about her family?”
“Oh, she wanted me to know how important they all were.” I waited. Cloelia considered. “I don’t think they have much fun. When my mother came to see if I was all right, Gaia saw her wink at me. Gaia seemed very surprised a mother would do that.”
“Yes, I met her own mother. She is very serious. I don’t suppose Gaia said anything about wanting to run away from home?”
“No. You don’t tell people you are going, or you get stopped.” Maia would be horrified to think Cloelia had thought about it.
“Right. So you don’t think she was in any trouble at home?”
“I can’t tell you any more,” Cloelia decided. The briskness with which she ended the interview was significant. Unfortunately, I could not push my eight-year-old niece up against a wall and yell at her that I knew she was lying. I was being glared at by Helena, and I was too frightened of Maia.
“Well, thank you, Cloelia.”
“That’s all right.”
