"The Silver Pigs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Lindsey)

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Petro and I ducked down a tiled entry between a cutler's and a cheese shop. We took the stairs before the elegant ground floor apartment that was occupied by the idle ex-slave who owned the whole block (and several other blocks too; they know how to live). We were in a flaky grey building behind the Emporium, not far from the river but not so near that it flooded in the spring. It was a poor neighbourhood, but there were green creepers wound round all the pillars on the street side, sleek cats asleep in window boxes summer bulbs brightening the balconies; someone always kept the steps swept here. It seemed to me a friendly sort of place, but I had known it a long time.

On the first floor landing we banged at a brick-red door, which I had under pressure painted myself, and were admitted by a tiny waif of a slave. We found our own way to the room where I knew everyone would be.

"Hah! Wine shops all closed early?"

"Hello, Mother," I said.

My mother was in her kitchen, supervising her cook, which meant the cook was nowhere in sight but ma was doing something rapid to a vegetable with a sharp knife. She works on the principle that if you want anything done properly, do it yourself. All around were other people's children, with their steely jaws clamped into loaves and fruit. When we arrived, Sosia Camillina sat at the kitchen table gorging a piece of cinnamon cake with a gusto that told me she was already well at home, as people in my parents' house tend to be.

Where was my father? Best not to enquire. He went out to a game of draughts when I was seven. Must be a long game, because he still hasn't come home.

I kissed my mother's cheek like a dutiful son, hoping Sosia would notice, and was whacked with a colander for my trouble.

Ma greeted Petronius with an affectionate smile. (Such a good boy; such a hard-working wife; such a regular well-paid job!)

My eldest sister Victorina was there. Petronius and I both withdrew into ourselves. I was terrified Victorina would call me Trouble in front of Sosia. I could not imagine why he looked so worried.

"Hello, Trouble," said my sister, then to Petronius, "Hello, Primrose!"

She was married now to a plasterer, but in some ways she had not changed since she tyrannized the Thirteenth when we were small. Petronius had not known the rest of us in those days, but like everyone for miles around he knew our Victorina.

"How's my favourite nephew?" I asked, since she was holding her latest pug-faced progeny. He had the wrinkled face and tearful gaze of a hundred-year-old man. He stared at me over her shoulder with visible contempt: barely crawling yet, but he could recognize a fraud.

Victorina shot me a tired look. She knew my heart belonged to Marcia, our three-year-old niece.

My mother sedated Petronius with a casket of raisins while she extracted impertinent facts about his relations with his wife. I managed to get hold of a melon slice, but Victorina's infant seized the other end. He had the grip of a Liburnian wrestler. We struggled for some minutes, then I gave way to the better chap. The wretch hurled the melon onto the floor.

Sosia watched everything with immense, solemn eyes. I suppose she had never been anywhere where there was so much going on in such good-humoured chaos.

"Hello, Falco!"

"Hello, Sosia!" I smiled, in tones that were meant to lap her body in liquid gold. My sister and mother exchanged a derisory glance. I put one foot on the bench beside Sosia and gazed down with a simmering leer until my mother noticed.

"Get your boot off my bench!"

I took my boot off the bench.

"Little goddess, you and I need a private talk."

"Whatever you need," ma informed me, "can be discussed right here!"

Grinning more than I thought necessary, Petronius Longus sat down at the table and leaned his chin on his hands while he waited for me to begin. Everyone knew that I had no idea what I wanted to say.

On several occasions before that, indignant females had described to me the expression on my mother's face when she met some painted madam with a scented skirt in my rooms. Sometimes I never saw them again. In fairness to my mother, my conquests had included bad mistakes.

"What's going on here?" my mother had rapped at Sosia when she discovered her during my enforced chat with Pertinax.

"Good morning," responded Sosia. My mother sniffed. She strode to the bedroom, flung aside the curtain, and weighed up the situation with the camp bed.

"Well! I can see what's going on! Client?"

"I am not allowed to say," Sosia said.

My mother replied that she would be the judge of what was allowed. Then she sat Sosia down and gave her something to eat. She has her methods. Pretty soon she had wormed out the whole tale. She demanded what Sosia's noble mama would think, so Sosia unwisely mentioned having no noble mama. My own sweet parent was appalled.

"Right! You can come with me!" Sosia murmured that she felt safe enough. Mother gave her a sharp look; Sosia went with my mama.

Now Petronius, bless him, weighed in to help me out.

"Time we took you home, little lady!"

I told Sosia how the senator had engaged me. From which she assumed rather too much.

"So he explained? I thought Uncle Decimus was being overcautious at first' She stopped, then rounded on me accusingly, "You don't know what I'm talking about!"

"Tell me then," I said very gently.

She was deeply troubled. Her great eyes flew towards my mother. People always trust my mother. "I don't know what to do!" she pleaded.

My mother answered huffily, "Don't look at me, I never interfere."

I snorted at this. Ma ignored it, but even Petro had let slip a stifled guffaw of amusement.

"Oh, tell him about your bank box, child. The worst he can do is steal it," mother said. Such wonderful faith! I suppose you can't blame her. My elder brother Festus for some peculiar reason made himself a military hero. I can't compete with that.

"Uncle Decimus is hiding something very important in my bank box in the Forum," Sosia muttered guiltily. "I'm the only person who knows the number to open the box. Those men were taking me there."

I stared at her with a set face, making her suffer. In the end I turned man-to-man to Petronius. "What do you think?" I had no doubt of his answer.

"Stroll along and look!"

Sosia Camillina was behaving very meekly, but she did pipe up to warn us we should need to take a handcart to carry the loot.