Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

would have been impressed by her.
    'This is bound to be painful, but I need to ask about how you found your brother's head, please.' Drusilla Gratiana whimpered and looked faint. Phryne shuddered, making a big show of it. 'Was there any particular reason why you went into the atrium, or were you just passing through normally on your way somewhere?' With a struggle, Drusilla gave a slight nod that indicated the latter. 'I'm sorry. This is unacceptably hard for you. I won't ask you any more.'
    I was only being amenable because my interview was ended anyway: the damned doctor had turned up. I knew who he was from the stuffed satchel of medicaments, the piqued frown, and the bustling manner that told his patients they were being charged by the minute by an exceptionally busy specialist who was much in demand.
    'Who is this low fellow?'
    'The name is Falco. Didius Falco.'
    'You look like a slave.'
    His arrogance smelt like a fisherman's fart, but I was not in the mood for nit-picking.
    Drusilla Gratiana was already stretching out on a couch. There were some female invalids with whom I would happily play doctors and nurses. In this case, I left.
    Some informers get to deal with buxom young female slaves who carry the titbit trays and yearn to make free with male visitors. My name is Didius Falco, and I end up with implacable old freedwomen: Cleander had shooed her out, making it plain that however intimate she was with Drusilla, he would not accept an underling at his consultation.
    I now needed to be shown where the torso was found and hoped to be led there by the house steward--but once she had been turfed out of the consultation, Phryne took over supervising me.
    'What's wrong with your mistress?' I enquired as we walked. 'She suffers with her nerves.'
    'And that was her doctor. What's his name again?'
    'Cleander.' Phryne disliked him. In view of his snooty attitude towards her, it was understandable.
    'He's a Greek?'
    'He's a Hippocratic pneumatist.'
    Sounded like he was a charlatan. 'And does he attend the whole family? I thought Quadrumatus Labeo sees Pylaemenes?'
    'Pylaemenes is his dream therapist. His doctor is Aedemon. He is an Egyptian,' said Phryne, who had grasped my line of questioning. 'An Alexandrian empiricist.' Another quack.
    'Drusilla Gratiana said her brother was not strong. Who looked after him?'
    'Mastarna. Etruscan. A dogmatist.'
    As she grew more terse, I took the hint and kept quiet until we came to a prettily decorated salon. It must have been thoroughly cleaned up; there was no sign now of the reported pools of blood. Gratianus Scaeva had been found on a reading couch; it had since been replaced with a different one. There were goat-footed marble side tables, display cabinets with a selection of bronze miniatures, lampstands, a couple of cedarwood scroll boxes, rugs, cushions, a hot wine dispenser, pens and ink, and in short, more pieces of furniture and knick-knacks than my mother had in her whole house--but no clues.
    We walked back to the atrium, where I said, 'I did not want to upset your mistress, but I have another question. Was anything found in the water, other than her brother's head? Were there any weapons or pieces of treasure, for instance?'
    Phryne looked at me wide-eyed. 'No! Should there have been?' I was taken aback by her reaction, but I had probably startled her with my reference to barbarian rites.
    At my request she then walked me to the suite Veleda had occupied. This was a very large villa. The Quadrumati were not sharing much of their domestic life with their house guest. They had kept Veleda so far away from the rest of them she could have been in a different dwelling.
    Her quarters had been comfortable. A couple of rooms, furnished in the same basic style as the rest of the house, though lighter on luxuries. She and Ganna had shared a bedroom, each with her own well-furnished bed. They ate in a small private dining room. A reception room with seating gave on to an enclosed