Much too long a story!" Pa and I replied, with rare unanimity. Helena Justina smiled and let our enigma pass her by, knowing she could pull the answer from me like a splinter in the finger later. She coiled herself gracefully on the couch beside my father and helped herself to his oozing snack. It smelt delicately of saffron; he could afford luxuries. Strands of green vegetation dangled from the piece of bread she pulled off. Helena managed these with elegant long fingers, while Pa just sucked his up like an enthusiastic blackbird gulping bits of live worm.
Geminus, now that we have you here…" Helena managed to make this sound inoffensive, yet Pa looked at her sharply. Do you know a man called Damagoras?" Pa was the one person I would not have asked. Still, Helena saw him as a man with useful contacts. He answered at once, Big old brigand? I have bought things off him."
What things?" I barked.
Rather good things, normally." Rather meant exceedingly good. And normally meant always.
Is he an importer?" My father laughed coarsely.
You mean he peddles stolen goods?"
Oh I imagine so." My father was an auctioneer and art dealer; the size of his profits signalled to me that he accepted goods for sale with little regard for provenance. Rome had a flourishing repro market, and Pa was adept at pretending he really believed a bare-faced copy was original Greek marble. In reality he had a good eye, and plenty of genuine statues that had evaded their real owners must have gone under his hammer too. I explained that Damagoras had told me he was too elderly to venture from his villa. My father spelled out for me, as if to a priest's little altar boy, that wicked people sometimes lie. He saw Damagoras as pretty active still.
Active in what, Papa?"
Oh, whatever he does." Helena toyed with an olive bowl. Annoyed, I recognised the olives. It looked as if Pa had opened up the Colymbadian giant queens that I was saving for special occasions. My shameless father would now take big scoops of the luscious green gems back to his own house. I would be lucky to find a lick of marinade at the bottom of an empty amphora.
Geminus, we think Damagoras is a pirate." Helena gazed sternly at my father. For her, he always pretended to be a reformed character. He was right; people lie. If pirates still exist, that is."
He's a bloody Cilician," retorted my father. What more do you need to know?"
You regard all Cilicians as pirates?"
It's the only life Cilicians know." And why should they abandon it, so long as crooked auctioneers in Rome would fence their plunder? I resented all my father stood for, but if he had information, I wanted it. I regret to say I need your help, Pa. Might Damagoras or his close associates be connected to a kidnapping racket that seems to be centred on Portus?"
Oh that!" exclaimed Pa. He might be bluffing, but my father always had an ear to the ground. He now said he had heard of people being held to ransom, though he was unable to link these kidnaps to Damagoras. He swore he knew the old villa-owner only as the seller of a particularly fine Aphrodite Surprised', a couple of years back. Beautifully modelled drapery!"
Wearing a wet chiton, you mean?"
