Our conversation ended. I was too nonplussed to sustain it.
Menendra turned on her heel and made off down the main road. A jerk of her head drew the two heavies after her. If I managed to interview her again, she would gloat and I would flail. The only option next time was an official interrogation. She would resist and only if we had direct evidence could she be leaned on. I had lost this game.
I was left to feel I had so far been foolish. Nobody ever told me Rufia was young; that was my own stupid misapprehension. Now I knew, I had to work through everything all over again. I had quite wrongly perceived the kind of event that must have happened here; I understood nothing about it.
Nowhere in the Twelve Tables is it legally enshrined that in the city of Rome a barmaid must be some cute young girl. Of course they generally are, unless the landlord can acquire others so much more cheaply that he puts up with a lack of youth or beauty. Some landlords have to employ their own relatives, who may be any age from eight to eighty and look as ugly as their employers.
I wouldn’t care how old Rufia was, except that all my previous theories about her fate suddenly became unlikely. The kind of predator I had imagined attacking a barmaid would want young flesh; that kind of sexual killer hardly ever stalks an older woman. Even if he is brave enough to take her on, her tough maturity insults his manhood. Perverts want them luscious. They need to snatch youth, which is for them unobtainable because of their own oddness; they yearn to punish the lively women they have seen with other men.
The idea that Old Thales had bumped off Rufia also took a new twist. If she and her employer had had any relationship, it could not have been as I once thought. If they had quarreled, it must have been a different kind of quarrel. Why Rufia was then killed along with five men became an even more intractable puzzle.
At least the stories of her quelling any trouble in the bar now seemed more natural. Experienced women tend to know how to quash obstreperous men. I could easily envisage this Rufia throwing out troublemakers. I could see them meekly leaving as soon as she said go. Regulars who knew her would probably not even start being loud while she was serving. She had been here for years. This bar ran the way she decreed.
Nipius and Natalis groaning at her bossiness now made more sense too. And I could see why they had sounded so astonished when I suggested they had gone upstairs with her. Menendra could not have been the only one who saw Rufia as an old woman.
* * *
While I was coming to terms with all this, Sparsus and Serenus, two of the workmen, appeared from behind me with one of their baskets of rubble, which they dumped in the gutter. Perhaps a cart had been arranged to pick up the mess later. Perhaps not. I was too preoccupied even to give them a reproving glance.
They asked if I was all right. From habit, I immediately said yes. I had looked after myself for twelve years as an informer. It would be hard to accept that I was becoming part of a family group, with staff who might take an interest, people who might want to protect me. Even so, I followed them back into the bar and through it to the courtyard, where I sat down, feeling more secure in their company.
The men got on with their work, consolidating the ground where the bodies had been dug up and starting a trench for the water feature. They must have been able to tell I was only giving them half my attention. I really wanted quiet time to readjust my thoughts.
* * *
This was hardly the first time a suspect had startled me, but I admit I felt like Prometheus having his liver pecked out. Perhaps being a bride was unsettling my guts. Hades, Albia. We hadn’t even got to traipsing out at dawn to cut the flowers for the bride-and-groom headdresses yet. Stinging nettles, if I had my way … I was in a foul mood.
I gazed around the courtyard, once again mentally peopling it with drinkers at tables, then trying to envisage how the customers had been attacked. Well, I presumed the victims had come as customers.
Now, instead of picturing a young, agreeable barmaid joking with them and perhaps upsetting her jealous landlord by seeming overfriendly, I superimposed a much older woman. She would be competent, yet not flirtatious. That would make customers cringe and Thales scoff. But I doubted that Rufia ever chatted up men as she served them. So, when the attack started that night, I wondered if the victims had grabbed her as a shield or a hostage. Maybe that was how she came to be killed in the scrum.
Musing, I wondered if Rufia had been the kind of barmaid who effortlessly remembered the exact round of drinks that had been ordered, or whether she was a vague one. If she was as stern as people implied, I bet no one argued when she banged down a wrong flagon. Once she came out to the garden with what she deemed people wanted, only a brave customer would send her back indoors for something else …
The workmen stopped for lunch. Huge chunks of bread, raw onions, fruit. Fruit … It was a while since their breakfast so they believed they were due a break. They tended to take many. I had heard Tiberius chivvying them, though mildly. Mostly, unless he was with me, he joined in. There was another wifely task; I would have to watch his weight.
Larcius, the foreman, came and plumped himself by me. Like the others, he asked if everything was all right. I must have looked properly shaken.
“I had an unpleasant set-to with a woman I needed to interview. I’m used to it. Don’t say anything to Faustus. I’ll tell him myself in due course, but it’s nothing he needs to worry about.”
“Who was that?” asked Larcius, nosily.
“Her name is Menendra. She sells some commodity to the bars around here. Ripe young whores, I expect.”
He nodded. “Seen her.”
“Oh! Do you know what her game is?”
Regrettably, he shook his head. “Only that she comes and goes a lot. As you say, in all the bars.” Did that mean the workmen had tried them all?
“Has she been here?”
“Once a week, on the dot. Keeps wanting to know when the Hesperides will reopen. I tell her we don’t know and shoo her out again.”
“Does she get aggressive?”
He grinned his toothless grin. People who inquired about the works were nothing new; he was an old hand at seeing them off. Neighbors often tried to extract information from builders, who (I was learning from Tiberius) either stalled completely or, if they were feeling mischievous, invented a mad story to cause consternation.
I sat and pondered.
Sparsus and Serenus, to whom ludicrous stories came easily, were in deep discussion as to what they were likely to encounter if and when they made a connection with an aqueduct for the water feature. They started talking about sewers. The fact that the builders made little distinction between the supply of fresh water and the removal of effluent could explain why so many households have plumbing work go badly wrong. Certainly the underground world was a source of thrills to our men. I heard mention of gigantic rats, discarded pet crocodiles, ghosts coming up from the Underworld, and—their favorite fright—large pulsating blobs.
“Worms!” called Larcius, hoping this detail would insert realism into the conversation. “Big tangles of worms.” No use. Sparsus and Serenus were not looking for facts, they wanted to scare themselves silly. Discussion of the legendary horrible blobs continued. They decided that if they should find one of these, Larcius could be the brave person who poked it with a stick to see what happened. He patiently agreed he would—if it was ever necessary. He had worked with them for years. He let them ramble.
“Flavia Albia’s been telling me she had a run-in with that Menendra.”
“Who’s that?”
“The miserable hag who comes around.”
“Oh her!” scoffed Sparsus.
“She’s a one,” agreed Serenus. “She can see we are nowhere near finishing, but she’s always on the niggle.”
The workmen had a kind of easy acceptance that the world was full of idiots, whom they had to fend off patiently. They possessed technical expertise while all members of the public were irritating amateurs. People love to stare at holes in the ground. They think they know all about hole-in-the-ground engineering and management. Works in a bar made it worse because gormless passers-by could so easily prop themselves against the marble counters, leaning in to ask time-wasting questions.
“So why is the finish date so vital to Menendra?” I queried, not expecting answers. “Do you know what she does?”
“Sells them their olives?” guessed Serenus. At least it was a variation on fruit.
“Ever seen her bring a storage amphora to any of the bars?”
Serenus looked offended at my persnicketiness. Proving a theory with evidence was new to him. If he continued to work for Faustus, he would have to sharpen up.
“I can ask her,” volunteered Larcius. “The next time she invades the site, nagging about when we’re handing it back to Liberalis, I shall say, ‘What do you need to know for?’ Then she’ll tell me.”
He was an innocent.
I just told him if he could find out, I would be grateful. He seemed proud to take charge of this task.
The day was growing very hot. The men said that once they finished lunch they were to close up and gently trek over to Lesser Laurel Street. I did wonder what exactly Tiberius was having them do there, but he would show me in his own time.
I left the bar, went to our hired room and had a quiet lie-down.