Subdued, I bought my fish, then walked slowly home. The crowds jostling in the main street seemed garish and crass. All looked vibrant and thriving in this multi-cultured port, but corruption ate at the heart of the local fabric, stinking like rotting seaweed. Many towns have a stench in the back alleys. Here it was subtle, but universal. The bullies from the builders" guild preyed on their own people; the vigiles left them to their own devices. Interlopers from barren provinces homed in as parasites on other foreigners. A young girl had had her life ruined. She failed to see her loss, or how it would ruin her father. An elderly cripple had died because no one would help her. A scribe had vanished. All these busy people in the streets pushed and shoved, all these heavily laden vehicles rattled and bumped, along the sunny streets in the name of commerce, heedless of the polluting tide that sucked to and fro in the darkness under the warm wharves of Ostia and Portus. I walked half the length of the Decumanus Maximus, one silent man amidst the bustle. I was thinking about someone else who had passed along this street in solitude. I wondered if bereavement was the only force working on Diocles" emotions, or if he too had burned with anger over this town. If he knew of the stench, I wondered what he did about it. I could not tell if I was any closer to finding him, but as I thought of Diocles that evening I knew that what had once seemed an easy, light-hearted task for me had assumed a blacker character. I hoped he was here. I hoped he was nearby. I wanted to find him, merely maudlin and drowning his sorrows at one of his solitary suppers in a bar. But increasingly I feared for him. It was just as well I had lashed out on the extra seafood. We had a houseful of visitors. Having shed my mother, we had suddenly acquired Helena's mama, not to mention her father and her younger brother. They had all come to see off Aelianus, whose ship would leave for Greece the next day. Fortunately, I was not expected to cram in extra people. Senatorial families always stay in some noble friend's villa when they travel around; they have the knack of finding one where the friend is not in residence to bother them. Unlike my own family, today's relatives were going on to a nearby estate for the traditional patrician customs. criticising their friend's bedlinen and his favourite slaves, before leaving a very short thank-you note and mounds of unwashed foodbowls. Slaves had gone ahead to ensure there were beds ready and hot water in the bath house. Tonight, the travellers were staying to supper with us. Decimus Camillus and Julia Justa wanted to see their granddaughters. Cooking arrangements in the apartment were not up to this, so we built an open fire down in the courtyard, over which I cooked the fish in relays. they were succulent and scented with herbs. Man's work; I had to fight for my position against the senator and his sons. They had no idea how to keep a wood fire going, and I was sceptical of their skewering techniques. Never mind where our firewood came from though I did hear the local baker had problems getting his oven fired up next day. We took over the whole ground floor outdoor area; other tenants of the apartment block could only gape jealously and mutter about us blocking access to the well. Helena and her mother went out for more provisions; there was a little market just inside the Gate of Fortune. Senators" wives never normally shop in person, but Julia Justa had a pretty good eye for a bunch of dill. They were extremely cheerful when they came back laden; it was probably the first time for years they had been on an expedition together. In fact there was so much giggling, I wondered whether the two of them had stepped into the Aquarius for a little spiced wine toddy. Far be it for me to sniff my mother-in-law's breath for cinnamon, or anything stronger. It is probably treason for an equestrian to suggest that a senator's wife has been drinking in a public place. I could certainly have got myself smacked, and I knew that women who have had a tipple lose all sense of how hard they are hitting. I remembered when Maia, as a young girl, used to come home hysterical from a screaming night of fun at the loom-workers funeral club. When I told this to Helena and Julia Justa, it caused so much merriment, I was quite sure about the hot toddy. It was a very warm evening. Back in Rome, the Camilli might seem diffident, in comparison to their stately colleagues, but once they were let out of their town house on a spree, they knew how to throw themselves into a country feast. We could have been at an olive harvest. We were loud, we ate heartily, we laughed and talked until it grew so dark we had to light oil lamps and start batting at insects. The children scampered about. Nux sniffed and snuffled around people's legs. Nervous at first, but then happier than I had seen her, Albia allocated bowls and spoons. Aulus hauled water from the well; Quintus opened up the amphora that had somehow found itself strapped in the luggage box of the senator's carriage without Julia Justa knowing why there seemed so little room for her possessions. The senator sat in the middle of everything, looking as if he wished he could retire to a vineyard in the sun.
