The endearment had sounded formal. I wondered what kind of relationship they really had. Laelia seemed a limp specimen, but I was never fooled by such couples. They were probably at it like rabbits all the time. The fact they had no children meant nothing. I knew that was from choice. Alongside Ariminius’ ghastly pot of crocus hair pomade in their bedroom, I had found a jar of the distinctive alum wax contraceptive that Helena and I used. It had been nearly empty, but an identical heavy jar with a film of clear wax sealing it had stood right alongside. They were not intending to run out.
“Thanks.” I decided to treat Ariminius as a sensible contact with whom I could share my thoughts. “Look, I don’t think Gaia stayed in the peristyle. She’s not there now anyway; nowhere to hide. You have an area of rough ground behind the house, which I need to search. Can you let me borrow some sturdy slaves to turn over the weed piles and forage through the undergrowth?”
“Oh, Gaia would not have gone there!” twittered Laelia.
“Maybe not. I have to search to be sure.”
“We can give you all the help you need. The outlook is bad, isn’t it?” asked Ariminius, looking at me searchingly. “Tell us the truth, Falco. You think she may be…” He could not say it.
“You’re right. The situation is desperate. When a child has been missing for a day and night, the odds double that she will not be found alive.”
“She would roam all over the place,” he told me, in a brisk, low voice. He was plainly ignoring Numentinus’ wish to be circumspect. Laelia did not protest but shrank into his shadow, not contributing either. Whereas Gaia’s mother had at least been driven by her fear for her child, Laelia was obeying family commands to stay silent-though she watched me closely. I felt her observation was almost malicious. She was curious what I would find out-and had a nasty little smile as she waited to see me thwarted.
“I can imagine what it was like living on the Palatine with an adventurous infant,” I commented to Ariminius.
“At least here the house is contained. Three sides face the street with secure doors and windows, and the area you mentioned at the back of the building has a high wall all around it.”
“But she has been known to run off. The nurse neglects her duties?” I suggested.
The Pomonalis sighed. “She flirts with the workmen whenever she can.”
“Right. I don’t want to be indelicate, but do you think it goes beyond flirting?” I did wonder if Gaia had seen something that shocked her.
Ariminius scoffed quietly. “You have seen the nurse! But the men don’t mind laughing with her-any excuse to stop their work.”
“And then Gaia slips away?”
“She means no harm,” Laelia cooed, like a doting aunt. “She just plays by herself.”
“A huge imagination, I gather?” The woman nodded. I asked quietly, “And is that why she came to tell me someone wanted her dead?”
Both bristled. Both ignored the question fixedly.
“I think she really had been threatened,” I said.
Still no answer.
I looked pointedly from one to another, as if deciding whether the death threats came from either of them. Then I let it drop. “There are various possibilities,” I told them coldly. “Prime options are thatbeing unhappy for reasons that nobody wants to admit-Gaia ran away either to seek out her father or your aunt Terentia. My view is, you should inform both of them, so they can look out for her.”
“Your view is noted,” said Ariminius. “I shall discuss with the Flamen whether to tell Scaurus.”
“Terentia Paulla already knows the child is lost?”
“She does,” replied Ariminius-not revealing that the ex-Vestal had been staying here until only that morning. I in turn did not reveal that I was aware she had been a visitor.
“Other possibilities are that the child may be here, hiding or trapped; a full systematic search is my next move. The third option is that she has been abducted, possibly for financial gain.”
“We are not a wealthy family,” Laelia said, raising her eyebrows.
“That’s a comparative term, of course. Where you see only mortgages, a starving robber might nonetheless hope to extract a fortune. Is money a problem?” I saw Ariminius shake his head, as much at his wife as at me. Although I had first thought him ineffectual, he now seemed to have a grasp of reality the others here lacked. Laelia just shrugged vaguely. I said to him, “Well, please inform me immediately if anything like a ransom note arrives.”
“Oh yes.” Ransomers would probably address the ex-Flamen, but Ariminius was playing the man of decision again. At any rate, if he saw a large spider who could only run slowly he would perhaps think about ways he could step on it.
“The worst possibility, if indeed she has been abducted, is that she is brothel fodder by now.” I was being blunt deliberately. Shock tactics were the only weapon I had left. “A potential Vestal Virgin would be seen as rich pickings.”
“Dear gods, Falco!”
