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Chapters (65)
  1. COVER
  2. NEMESIS
  3. ROME AND LATIUM: SUMMER, AD 77
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
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‘You told my father you were expecting, he accepted it was his responsibility, and if he hadn’t died, he would have acknowledged the baby?’

‘That’s right, Falco,’ said Thalia meekly.

‘What does Davos say?’

‘Nothing to do with him.’ Davos was Thalia’s long-lost love, in theory. Helena and I had witnessed them being reunited out in Syria. It had seemed like a heart-warming development—for about three months. As far as I knew, he was now leading a summer theatre tour in southern Italy. No chance of pinning this baby on Davos. ‘The Girl from Andros’ and her pal ‘The Girl from Perinthos’ would give him foolproof alibis.

‘And have you mentioned it to Philadelphion?’

‘Why would I do that?’

Thalia gave me a hard defiant stare. She was sticking to her story, even though she realised I thought it much more likely her child had been procreated by a womanising zoo keeper we knew in Alexandria. He was firmly married—and what’s more had a tenacious official mistress. None of that had stopped him unofficially discussing the price of lion cubs with his old crony Thalia in the humid privacy of her travel tent.

‘You’re right.’ I managed not to appear angry. ‘Philadelphion had enough baby animals to hand-rear.’

I rarely pray to the gods but on this occasion it did seem permissible to offer up a plea to Juno Lucina, light-bearer to pregnant women, that Thalia was not expecting male twins or triplets to reduce my heritage even further. Suddenly I knew how that old mythical king felt about the interlopers Romulus and Remus. I saw why he put those threatening twins straight into the Tiber in a basket; if I did it, I would make sure there were no nearby female wolves available for suckling.

‘So Marcus, my dear,’ Thalia wheedled. ‘It’s lucky we know each other so well—now that I’m going to be giving you a little sister or brother! And do I gather the precious babe is to receive a bit of money from your lovely father?’

‘Get it born first!’ I answered her, perhaps too cruelly.

6

‘You hypocrite—I saw your face!’ Helena accused me. She smoothed her skirts, rattling her bracelets in annoyance. ‘Marcus Didius Falco—’ That was a subtle clue. Helena used formality like a fisherman’s trident. I was well speared. ‘Can it be that you have become a miser, over a fortune you never expected—and it’s only nine days since you heard about it?’

‘Human nature. The dark side of greed.’ I forced a grin cautiously. ‘What I really hate is this pregnancy of Thalia’s being passed off as our problem. Pa was riddled with vanity and befuddled by drink if he couldn’t see she was conning him. Being fleeced by a friend is loathsome.’